TOiliiii&  I  "im/  i 

i'//J&''/.&*  .    .,    . 


I 

t 


JET  68. 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS: 


THE  AGITATOR. 


BY 


CARLOS    ^ARTYN, 

Editor  of  "  American  Reformers,"  and  author  of  "  John  Milton,"  il  Wm.  E. 
Dodge"  etc. 


WITH    AN 


APPENDIX 

CONTAINING  THREE  OF  THE  ORATOR'S  MASTERPIECES,   NEVER   BEFORE 
PUBLISHED  IN  BOOK  FORM,  VIZ.  : 

"THE   LOST  ARTS." 

"  DANIEL   O'CONNELL." 

"THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A   REPUBLIC." 


PRINTED    IN    THE   UNITED  STATES. 


FUNK   &   WAGNALLS. 

NEW  YORK:  g  LONDON: 

18  &  20  ASTOR  PLACE.  44  FLEET  STREET. 

All  Rights  R«ttrved. 


35 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1890,  by 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


PREFACE. 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS  was  a  citizen  of  the  twentieth 
century  sent  as  a  sample  to  us  of  the  nineteenth. 
There  is  not  in  biography  another  character  more 
profoundly  interesting  and  instructive.  Whether 
judged  by  the  length,  variety,  influence,  or  genius 
of  his  life,  this  man  was  unique.  Fredrika  Bremer 
said  long  ago  :  "  The  anti -slavery  struggle  will  be 
the  romance  of  American  history."  The  Swedish 
novelist  foretold  that  our  future  Sir  Walter  Scott 
would  find  in  this  "  debatable  ground"  the  richest 
materials  for  his  "  Sixty  Years  Hence."  But  where 
was  there  in  the  "irrepressible  conflict"  a  more 
heroic  figure  than  Mr.  Phillips  ? 

Nor  was  his  an  isolated  advocacy.  He  identified 
himself  as  inseparably  with  every  other  reform  of 
the  age.  There  was  no  exception.  He  stood,  "  The 
Admirable  Crichton"  of  progress.  Would  any  one 
understand  this  century  ?  Would  he  equip  himself 
for  usefulness  ?  Would  he  catch  fire  from  contact 
with  one  of  the  purest,  ablest,  most  inspiring  of 
men  ?  Let  him  study  and  emulate  the  career  of 
Wendell  Phillips. 

Biography  has  been  defined  as  the  story  of  a  single 
soul.  But  the  narrative  becomes  complex,  since  in 
its  passage  a  single  soul  touches  many  other  souls. 

,  M144731 


IV  PREFACE. 

Hence  biography  expands  into  history.  The  prob 
lem  is  to  preserve  the  biography  in  the  history — to 
make  the  individual  stand  out  in  the  midst  of  the 
crowd.  This  difficulty  is  intensified  when  the  life 
portrayed,  like  the  shuttle  in  weaving,  plays  into  the 
very  warp  and  woof  of  the  times. 

In  the  case  of  Mr.  Phillips,  the  effort  has  been  to 
give  only  so  much  of  the  wider  view  as  should  make 
his  career  comprehensible.  In  these  pages  every 
thing  has  been  subordinated  to  the  setting  forth 
of  the  man  in  his  essential  features,  clean-cut  and 
pronounced.  Under  this  rule,  a  mass  of  inter 
esting  matter  has  been  set  resolutely  aside.  Many 
related  persons  have  been  passed  over,  or  dismissed 
with, a  mere  mention.  Nothing  has  been  admitted 
save  what  would  individualize,  animate,  and  repro 
duce  the  great  reformer.  This  is  a  biography,  not 
a  history.  Surely,  a  man  should  be  the  hero  of  his 
own  life. 

A  vast  amount  of  new  material  only  just  now  ac 
cessible,  yet  essential  to  a  just  estimate  of  the  orator, 
and  suggestive  and  illustrative  of  his  mental  and  per 
sonal  habits,  will  be  found  within  these  covers,  giving 
a  near  and  intimate  view  of  him.  The  account  of 
his  earlier  and  mid-career  is  especially  full. 

One  great  merit  we  may  confidently  claim  for  this 
volume.  It  abounds  in  copious  quotations  from  Mr. 
Phillips's  utterances.  He  is  given  the  opportunity 
to  state  his  position  in  his  own  words  on  every  one 
of  the  great  issues  in  which  he  was  interested. 
Hence  it  is  in  some  sense  a  handbook  of  his  opinions. 

Here  are  principles  for  the  philosophical,  facts  for 
the  matter-of-fact,  extracts  from  speeches  which 
made  and  vocalized  history,  for  the  admirers  of  elo- 


PREFACE.  V 

quence,  anecdotes  for  the  lovers  of  ana,  portraits  for 
students  of  pictures,  illustrations  for  teachers  and 
speakers,  tumults  for  those  who  delight  in  excite 
ment. — something  for  every  one,  and  a  good  deal  for 
all.  Who  loves  freedom  ?  Who  desires  to  look  into 
and  help  forward  the  great  reforms  still  struggling 
toward  accomplishment  ?  Who  is  interested  in  the 
enlargement  of  woman's  sphere,  in  temperance,  in 
the  question  of  capital  and  labor,  in  the  Irish  agita 
tion,  in  the  ethics  of  progress  ?  Mr.  Phillips  was 
their  consummate  exponent.  As  well  read  "  Ham 
let,"  with  Hamlet  cut  out,  as  hope  to  grasp  these 
issues  without  his  luminous  guidance. 

If  at  any  point  this  narrative  drops  below  the  level 
of  our  friend  Dryasdust,  the  charge  of  a  lack  of 
dignity  will  be  cheerfully  borne  if  it  carries  the 
reader  inside  of  the  subject.  Boswell  is  by  com 
mon  consent  the  best  of  biographers.  Why?  Be 
cause  he  jots  down  the  day's  minutiae— every  occur 
rence  from  the  morning  bath,  the  chops  for  breakfast, 
the  walk  along  Fleet  Street,  to  the  last  mot  at  night. 
Trifles  reveal  character.  We  get  at  the  real  self 
most  surely  when  the  hero  is  off  parade  and  in  un 
dress.  Thanks  to  Boswell,  we  know  Dr.  Johnson. 

The  writer  confesses  that  as  he  has  written  he  has 
dipped  his  pen  in  his  heart  for  ink.  He  has  made 
himself  not  the  critic,  but  the  biographer  of  Mr. 
Phillips.  The  life  he  lived  is  the  life  described.  An 
effort  has  been  made  to  open  a  window  into  the  man 
so  that  the, world  might  look  in.  There  is  nothing 
to  hide.  The  deeper  the  insight,  the  greater  will 
be  the  admiration  for  the  Agitator's  talents  and  the 
reverence  for  his  character. 

To  the  many  friends  who  have  interested  them- 


VI  PREFACE. 

selves  in  and  aided  his  task,  the  author  expresses 
again,  in  this  formal  way,  his  earnest  thanks.  Let 
us  hope  the  result  may  compensate  the  effort.  It 
will,  if  Wendell  Phillips  shall  live  and  breathe  again 
before  our  eyes  and  in  our  souls  as  these  pages  are 

turned. 

CARLOS  MARTYN. 

NEW  YORK  CITY,  March,  1890. 


THERE,  with  one  hand  behind  his  back, 
Stands  Phillips,  buttoned  in  a  sack, 
Our  Attic  orator,  our  Chatham  ; 
Old  fogies,  when  he  lightens  at  'em, 
Shrivel  like  leaves  ;.  to  him  'tis  granted 
Always  to  say  the  word  that's  wanted. 
So  that  he  seems  but  speaking  clearer 
The  tip-top  thought  of  every  hearer  ; 
Each  flash  his  brooding  heart  lets  fall. 
Fires  what's  combustible  in  all, 
And  sends  the  applauses  bursting  in 
Like  an  exploded  magazine. 
His  eloquence  no  frothy  show. 
The  gutter's  street-polluted  flow, 
No  Mississippi's  yellow  flood 
Whose  shoalness  can't  be  seen  for  mud  ; 
So  simply  clear,  serenely  deep, 
So  silent  -strong  its  graceful  sweep, 
None  measures  its  unrippling  force 
Who  has  not  striven  to  stem  its  course. 

—JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 

• 

THE  greatest  praise  government  can  win  is,  that  its  citizens 
know  their  rights  and  dare  maintain  them.  The  best  use  of 
good  laws  is  to  teach  men  to  trample  bad  laws  under  their  feet. 
On  these  principles  I  am  willing  to  stand  before  the  community 
in  which  I  was  born  and  b'rought  up  ;  where  I  expect  to  live  and 
die  ;  where,  if  I  win  any  reputation,  I  expect  to  earn  and  keep 
it.  As  a  sane  man,  as  a  Christian  man,  and  as  a  lover  of  my 
country,  I  am  willing  to  be  judged  by  posterity. — WENDELL 
PHILLIPS. 

MR.  PHILLIPS  had  all  the  qualities  of  a  great  orator  :  command 
of  himself,  warm  sympathy,  responsive  intellect,  splendid  rep 
artee,  the  power  to  flash,  the  power  to  hit  close,  the  language 
of  the  people,  a  wonderful  magnetism,  and  an  earnestness  that 
made  him  the  unconscious  hero  of  the  cause  he  pleaded. — The 
Boston  Herald. 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  I. 

MORNING. 

1811-1837. 

PAGE 

I.  GENESIS 15-24 

II.  ENVIRONMENT 25-33 

til.  SCHOOLING 34-48 

IV.  THE  YOUNG  LAWYER 49-56 

V.  THE  MARTYR  AGE , 57~77 

VI.  THE  NEW  CLIENT 78-85 

VII.  IN  FANEUIL  HALL.  .                                                          .  86-102 


BOOK  II. 

NOON. 

1838-1865. 

I.  THE  ABOLITIONISTS— MEN  AND  MEASURES 105-115 

II.  A  CONUNDRUM 116-121 

III.  "VALE" 122-126 

IV.  SCENES  AND  EXPERIENCES  IN  EUROPE 127-147 

V.  No.  26  ESSEX  STREET  148-151 

VI.  THE  IRISH  ADDRESS 152-158 

VII.  A  NEW  BATTLE  OF  CONCORD 159-163 

VIII.  THE  "  COVENANT  WITH  DEATH" 161-173 

IX.  INFIDELITY  IN  THE  'FORTIES 174-178 

X.  THE  AGITATOR 179-188 

XI.  EGERIA 189-198 

XII.  CONCERNING  A  SINGULAR  EPIDEMIC. 199-203 

XIII.  MR.  CALHOUN'S  IDEA  OF  EQUILIBRIUM 204-211 


X  CONTENTS. 

I'AGB 

XIV.  INCIDENTS 212-222 

XV.  THE  DEVIL'S  GOSPEL 223-234 

XVI.  THE  WOMEN,  AND  A  MAN 235-242 

XVII.  DISJECTA  MEMBRA 243-250 

XVIII.  GOOD  WORKS 251-258 

XIX.  PORTRAITS 259-266 

XX.  EXCITEMENT 267-275 

XXI.  GREAT  EVENTS 276-288 

XXII.  "  IRREPRESSIBLE  CONFLICT" 289-299 

XXIII.  THE  WINTER  OF  SECESSION 300-311 

XXIV.  UNDER  THE  FLAG 312-322 

XXV.  THE  STRUGGLE  OF  Two  CIVILIZATIONS 323-337 

XXVI.  SHADOW  IN  SUNSHINE 338-345 


BOOK   III. 

AFTERNOON. 

1866-1879. 

I.  FROM  BATTLE-FIELD  TO  FORUM 349-365 

II.  lo  !  TRIUMPHE  ! 366-376 

III.  "  NEW  OCCASIONS  TEACH  NEW  DUTIES" 377-385 

IV.  LIVING  ISSUES 386-398 

V.  GRANT — GREELEY — FROUDE 399-406 

VI.  OLLA  PODRIDA 407-417 

VII.  USEFULNESS , 418  430 

VIII.  THE  RADICAL  CLUB 431-439 

IX,  LYCEUM  EXPERIENCES 440-447 


BOOK  IV. 

EVENING. 

1880-1884. 

I.  STILL  CONTENDING 451-469 

II.  LENGTHENING  SHADOWS 470-478 

IH.  SUNDOWN 479-482 


CONTENTS.  XI 

PACK 

IV.  "  AT  EVEN-TIME  IT  SHALL  BE  LIGHT" 483-488 

V.  THE  ORATOR 489-505 

VI.  THE  MAN * 506-524 

VII.  PHILLJPSIANA 525-530 


* 


APPENDIX. 


THE  LOST  ARTS" 533-547 

DANIEL  O'CONNELL" 548-569 

THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC" 57<>-594 


INDEX 595-^00 


BOOK  I. 


MORNING 

181 1-1837. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 


i.        -^ 

GENESIS. 

THE  first  American  Phillips  was  an  Englishman  ; 
and  so  was  the  second.  Since  the  family  began  on 
this  side  of  the  water  in  a  paradoxical  way,  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  most  illustrious  member  of  it  should 
have  been  fond  of  paradoxes. 

The  Rev.  George  Phillips  was  one  of  the  band  of 
conscience  exiles  who  sailed  from  Great  Britain  for 
the  new  world,  in  1630,  in  the  "Arbella,"  withWin- 
throp  and  Saltonstall  and  Johnson  ;  this  last  a  land 
owner  in  three  counties,  after  whose  charming  wife 
the  chief  vessel  of  the  flotilla  of  ten  ships  was  named.1 
Things  were  in  a  bad  way  over  there,  or  seemed  to 
be  ;  although,  as  is  apt  to  be  the  case,  it  was  darkest 
just  before  the  dawn  ;  for  within  ten  years  Hampden 


1  The  common  orthography  is  Arabella,  but  later  writers  almost 
unanimously  reject  this  spelling,  which  is  founded  on  the  often-erring 
authority  of  Mather  in  the  "  Magnalia,"  and  of  Josselyn,  and  accept 
that  of  John  Winthrop  in  his  Diary,  of  Johnson,  in  the  "  Wonder- 
Working  Providence,"  and  of  Dudley's  Epistles.  These  men  were 
personally  acquainted  with  Mr.  Johnson.  Vide  Winthrop,  p.  i, 
note. 


^  \Sy-ENDELLPHILLIPS. 


and  Pym  and  Vane  and  Cromwell  revolutionized 
England  in  never-to-be-forgotten  fashion.  Just  now. 
however,  the  situation  was  forlorn  enough.  The 
mother-country  was  parcelled  out  among  three  con 
tending  parties  :  The  Puritans,  who  were  so  namec, 
because  they  stickled  for  the  simplicity  of  the  Gos 
pel  ;  the  Papists,  who  had  swayed  the  sceptre  under 
"  Bloody  Mary,"  and  were  destined  to  grasp  i: 
again  a  generation  later  under  James  II.,  and  in  the 
mean  time  were  sleeplessly  plotting  ;  and  the  Prcl- 
atists,  Protestants  by  profession,  Papists  in  practice, 
who  were  encamped  at  court.  Charles  I.  now  sat 
on  the  throne.  He  was  that  oddest  of  anomalies,  ;i 
treacherous  moralist.  Yes,  Charles  was  the  painting 
of  a  virtue.  Outwardly,  he  was  Cato  ;  inwardly, 
he  was  lago.  His  faction,  wedded  like  himself  to 
the  tenets  of  absolutism,  eagerly  cried  Amen  to  his 
most  arbitrary  ac(s,  which  they  often  instigated. 
Liberty  -loving  people  —  men  and  women  whose  Bible 
was  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  and  not  the  Prayer- 
book,  who  worshipped  God  in  spirit  rather  than  in 
form,  Christians  instead  of  Pharisees  —  had  a  sorry 
time  of  it.  Britain,  emancipated  from  the  Pope, 
hugged  the  popedom.  Dissent  from  the  State  re 
ligion  was  heresy.  The  measure  of  a  conscience 
was  the  length  of  a  prelate's  foot.  Thus  stood  the 
Puritans  at  the  date  we  have  mentioned  :  popery 
preparing  to  spring  upon  them,  while  the  fangs  of 
prelacy  were  already  buried  in  their  throat. 

Looking  about  for  a  chance  to  escape,  these  vic 
tims  of  persecution  were  attracted  hither,  where  a 
colony  of  their  fellows  had  been  planted  in  1620  —  the 
famous  landers  on  Plymouth  Rock.  The  newcomers 
disembarked  to  the  north  of  the  earlier  settlers,  at 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  I/ 

Salem,  a  place  so  called  "  for  the  peace  they  had 
and  hoped  in  it."  1 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Phillips  was  a  Puritan.  He  could 
not  and  would  not  conform  to  Strafford,  the  syste- 
matizer  of  tyranny  in  the  State,  and  to  Laud,  the  ex 
ponent  of  absolute  power  in  the  Church.  A  gentle 
man  by  birth,  a  graduate  of  the  English  Cambridge, 
a  rector  at  Boxted,  in  Essex  County,  happily  mar 
ried  and  at  work,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  tear  himself 
up  root  and  branch  in  obedience  to  his  conscience. 
Come-outerism  being  in  the  blood,  it  should  not  sur 
prise  us  to  find  the  quality,  an  occasion  having  arisen, 
again  asserting  itself  down  the  line  of  descent. 

Soon  after  reaching  America,  Mr.  Phillips  lost  his 
wife  ;  she,  like  the  lady  Arbella  Johnson,  who  pre 
ceded  her  to  the  grave,  dying  from  exposure  on  the 
voyage  and  hardship  on  land.  Delicately  reared  and 
accustomed  to  luxurious  surroundings,  they  were 
early  and  lovely  martyrs.  The  widower's  sorrow 
was  too  full  for  utterance,  or  he  might  have  hymned 
it  in  those  lines  of  Dr.  Watts,  so  tender  and  pathetic  : 

"  I  was  all  love  and  she  was  all  delight  ; 

Let  me  run  back  to  seasons  past ; 
Ah,  flowery  days,  when  first  she  charmed  my  sight ! 
But  roses  will  not  always  last." 

Leaving  Salem,  Mr.  Phillips  went  to  Watertown, 
now  a  part  of  Boston,  where  he  became  the  first 
minister  of  the  town.  This  pastorate  he  held  during 
fourteen  years,  until  his  death,  in  1644,  at  the  age  of 
fifty -one.  He  was  a  man  of  solid  attainments  and 
vigorous  intellect,  was  associated  with  John  Win- 


1  In  reference  to  the   meaning   of   the  word  Salem,  vide   Cotton 
Mather's  "  Magnalia,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  67,  68. 


IS  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

throp  in  the  government  of  the  Colony  of  Massa 
chusetts,  and  was  the  earliest  advocate  in  America 
of  the  Congregational  order  and  discipline.1  Thus 
he  marches  among  the  founders  of  empire — conditorcs 
impcriorum,  to  whom  Lord  Bacon,  in  his  "  Marshal 
ling  of  theSovereign  Degree.?  of  Honor,"  assigns  the 
foremost  place. 

Such  was  Phillips  the  first.  His  eldest  son,  Phil 
lips  the  second/  was  born  in  England  in  1625  ; 
crossed  the  sea  with  his  parents  when  five  years  old  ; 
was  among  the  earliest  graduates  of  Harvard  Col 
lege,  then  recently  founded  ; 3  entered  the  ministry  ; 
settled  at  Rowley,  in  Massachusetts,  in  1651,  where 
he  remained  until  his  death,  in  1696,  making  himself 
kmown  and  felt  as*  the  Rev.  Samuel  Phillips.  A 
twelvemonth  after  leaving  college,  he  married  Sarah 
Appleton,  of  Ipswich,  and  this  couple  left  a  large 
family.  The  second  Phillips  was  a  man  of  estimable 
character  and  brilliant  ability --the  favorite  orator 
on  anniversary  occasions.4  This  characteristic,  too, 
reappeared,  later  on,  with  added  vim. 

Phillips  the  third  was  named  Samuel,  after  his 
father.  He  broke  the  clerical  continuity  and  took 
to  business,  removing  to  Salem,  where  he  became 
a  goldsmith.  Born  in  1657,  he  married  a  grand 
daughter  of  Deputy-Governor  Symonds,  Mary  Emer 
son,  of  Gloucester,  Mass.,  and  died  in  1722,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-five.  He  was  a  man  of  unblemished 
reputation,  had  a  genius  for  trade,  and  made  money. 


"  Phillips  Genealogies,"  by  Albert  M.  Phillips,  p.  10. 

2  The  Rev.  George  Phillips  married  a  second  time,  and  left  seven 
children  by  this  marriage. 

3  Opened  in  1638.  4  Gage's     "  History  of  Rowley." 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  IQ 

He  also  begat  children,1  two  of  whom  it  behooves 
us  attentively  to  notice.  The  eldest  son,  named 
Samuel  after  his  father,  jumped  back  into  the  min 
istry.  The  four  chief  events  in  his  life  were  :  his 
birth,  in  1689  ;  his  graduation  from  Harvard  College, 
in  1708  ;  his  settlement  as  pastor  of  the  "  Old  South 
Church"  in  Andover,  in  1710,  and  his  marriage,  in 
1711,  to  Hannah  White,  of  Haverhill,  Mass.,  whose 
father  was  a  deacon  and  a  captain  in  the  militia.  This 
Phillips,  of  the  fourth  generation,  continued  to 
preach  in  Andover  until  his  death,  in  1771  ;  was  a 
model  of  industry  and  self-restraint,  and  a  born 
leader  in  thought  and  action.2 

He  left  five  children,  two  of  whom  became  widely 
useful  and  distinguished,  viz.,  Samuel  and  John 
Phillips.  These  brothers  were  laymen,  and  settled 
the  one  in  Andover,  Mass.,  the  other  in  Exeter, 
N.  H.  Both  accumulated  wealth,  and  they  became 
the  joint  founders  of  the  celebrated  Phillips  Acad 
emy,  in  Andover — an  institution  whose  usefulness  in 
creases  with  the  lapse  of  time.  In  addition  to  this 
good  work,  John  founded  the  Phillips  Academy,  in 
Exeter,  the  twin  of  Andover,  and  also  endowed  a 
chair  of  theology  at  Dartmouth  College.  Living  in 
the  "times  that  tried  men's  souls,"  these  brothers 
were  patriots  and  saints — among  the  most  eminent 
ot  all.3  The  son  of  the  eldest,  known  as  Judge  Phil 
lips,  inherited  the  best  qualities  of  both  ;  became 
lieutenant-governor  of  Massachusetts,  and  continued 


1  Samuel   Phillips,  like  his  grandfather,  was  twice  married.     All  his 
children  were  by  his  first  wife,  save  the  last. 

2  "  Memoir  of  Judge  Phillips,"  by  Rev.  John  L.  Taylor,   p.  7. 

3  Vide  "  Phillips  Genealogies,"   pp.  15-20,  passim. 


20  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

their  benefactions  to  the  cause  of  learning,  lavishing" 
time,  attention,  money  upon  the  Andover  Academy, 
especially,  whose  constitution  and  course  of  study 
are  the  output  of  his  brain.1 

Having  said  so  much  regarding  the  elder  of  this 
fourth  generation,  and  his  immediate  descendants, 
beguiled  into  it  by  their  usefulness  and  eminence, 
we  return  now  to  the  second  son  of  Samuel  Phillips, 
the  goldsmith,  whose  name  was  John — the  great 
grandfather  of  the  subject  of  these  pages.  John 
Phillips  was  born  in  1701.  He  became  a  Boston 
merchant  ;  married,  in  1723,  Mary,  a  daughter  of 
Nicholas  Buttolph,  also  of  Boston  ;  possessed  marked 
mercantile  ability,  as  his  success  shows  ;  was  a  dea 
con  in  the  old  Brattle-street  church,  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  colonel  of  the  Boston  regiment,  and  many 
times  represented  the  town  in  the  General  Court. 
He  died  in  1768,  "  and  was  buried  with  military 
honors."  3  This  was  the  fourth  Phillips  in  the  direct 
line  to  Wendell.  Phillips  the  fifth  was  William, 
only  son  of  John  and  Mary  Buttolph,  who  was  born 
in  1737,  and  who  married  Margaret,  youngest  child 
of  the  Hon.  Jacob  Wendell,3  a  distinguished  mer 
chant  of  Boston,  a  military  magnate,  and  one  of  the 
Governor's  Council.  William  Phillips  died  early 


1  Vide  "  Phillips  Genealogies,"  pp.  20-24.  Judge  Phillips  gave 
many  thousands  of  dollars  in  this  way.  Bearing  in  mind  the  difference 
in  the  purchasing  power  of  money  then  and  now,  his  gifts  would  be 
equivalent  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  to-day.  See  an  inter 
esting  and  valuable  article  on  Andover  in  Harper  s  Magazine,  vol.  lv.f 
P-  564. 

8  /£.,  p.  29. 

3  The  Wendells  were  of  Dutch  extraction,  and  came  to  Boston  from 
Albany,  N.  Y.,  in  the  ea*ly  years  of  the  eighteenth  century. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  21 

— at  thirty-four.  His  widow  survived  him  many 
years.1  It  was  from  her  that  our  Wendell  received 
his  name. 

Their  only  son  became  famous  as  the  Hon.  John 
Phillips — sixth  in  the  line  from  the  American  ances 
tor.  He  was  born  in  1770.  Two  years  later  his 
father  died.  His  mother  proved  equal  to  the  emer 
gency.  She  was  a  woman  of  unusual  strength  of 
character,  well  educated,  and  a  devoted  Christian. 
On  account  of  the  advantages  he  would  there  enjoy, 
she  sent  her  boy  to  abide  under  the  roof-tree  of  his 
uncle,  Lieutenant-Governor  Phillips,  at  Andover, 
where  he  fitted  for  college  at  the  academy  of  which 
his  kinsman  was  such  a  generous  patron.  Entering 
Harvard  when  he  was  fourteen,  he  was  graduated 
in  1788,  and  pronounced  the  salutatory  oration.  He 
was  called  to  the  bar  shortly  afterward,  and  leaped 
into  an  extensive  and  lucrative  practice.  In  1794  he 
was  selected  to  deliver  the  oration  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  with  Boston  for  an  audience — a  production 
familiar  ever  since  through  an  extract  in  the  school- 
books,  where  it  rests  as  a  model  of  eloquence,  and 
which  several  generations  of  boys  have  declaimed. 
The  finger-tips  of  the  writer  tingle  as  they  hold  the 
pen  in  memory  of  one  such  occasion. 

While  the  echoes  of  that  speech  yet  resounded  in 
the  old  town,  Mr.  Phillips  married  Sally  Walley, 
whose  father  was  a  successful  merchant  there.  This 
lady  became  one  of  the  best  of  wives,  one  of  the 
most  devoted  of  mothers.  Patient,  watchful,  con 
siderate,  self-sacrificing,  she  was  a  power  for  good 
in  all  the  relations  of  home  and  neighborhood.  She 


1  She  died  February  271!),  1823. 


22  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

possessed  fine   natural    powers  of    mind  and  heart, 
which  she  had  been  able  carefully  to  cultivate.     Thus 

she  stood, 

"  A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  and  command." 

Aided  by  his  own  powers,  admirably  seconded  by 
his  wife's  co-operation,  John  Phillips  passed  rapidly 
on  and  up  from  high  to  higher.  In  1800,  on  the 
establishment  of  the  Municipal  Court  in  Boston,  he 
was  made  public  prosecutor,  a  function  which,  in  a 
less  official  but  far  Avider  sense,  his  celebrated  son 
inherited.  In  1803  he  was  elected  to  the  House  of 
Representatives.  In  1804  he  was  returned  to  the 
Senate  of  Massachusetts,  where  he  remained  until 
his  death.  In  1809  he  became  judge  of  the  Court  of 
Common  Pleas.  In  1812  he  was  chosen  a  member 
of  the  corporation  of  Harvard  College.  In  1820  he 
sat  in  the  Convention  for  the  Revision  of  the  Con 
stitution  of  the  State — perhaps  the  most  conspicuous 
figure  in  that  able  and  dignified  body.  In  1821  Bos 
ton  adopted  a  city  charter.  Two  candidates,  equally 
eminent,  were  named  for  the  mayoralty — Harrison 
Gray  Otis,  a  nephew  of  that  James  Otis  whose  elo 
quence  had  defied  George  III.,  and  consecrated  Fa- 
neuil  Hall  and  the  "  Old  South  "  Church  to  liberty, 
himself  one  of  the  most  accomplished  orators  of  that 
generation  ;  and  Josiah  Quincy,  already  decorated 
with  honors,  State  and  national,  to  which  he  further 
added,  in  after  years,  the  titles  of  Speaker  of  the 
Massachusetts  House  of  Representatives,  Judge  of 
the  Municipal  Court,  and  President  of  Harvard  Col 
lege.  Between  two  such  worthy  competitors  selec 
tion  was  difficult.  A  vote  resulted  in  no  choice, 
whereupon  the  Hon.  John  Phillips  was  pitched  upon 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  23 

as  a  compromise  candidate,  and  was  immediately 
elected — practically  without  opposition.  He  thus 
became  the  first  Mayor  of  Boston.  His  incumbency 
was  so  satisfactory  that  there  was  a  universal  de 
mand  for  his  re-election.  But  before  the  close  of 
his  term  he  was  suddenly  removed  from  earth  by 
angina  pectoris,  an  insidious  disease  destined  more 
than  half  a  century  later  to  end  the  mortal  career  of 
his  great  son. 

John  Phillips  was  universally  respected.  His 
mind  was  clear  and  wide,  his  heart  was  warm,  his 
hands  were  open  and  clean,  his  soul  was  anchored 
in  deep  piety.  Filling  as  he  did  a  great  variety  of  / 
offices,  no  one  ever  questioned  either  his  integrity  y 
or  his  ability.  He  was  specially  gifted  in  speech, 
and  this  power  was  enhanced  by  a  singular  charm 
of  manner.  In  this  he  was  evidently  the  father  of 
his  son.  But  he  is  also  credited  by  tradition  with 
"a  pliable  disposition,"  which,  just  as  plainly,  he 
did  not  transmit  to  one  of  his  children. 

Early  in  the  century,  Mr.  Phillips  built  for  himself 
a  spacious  mansion  of  the  colonial  pattern,  at  the 
corner  of  Beacon  and  Walnut  streets,  which  became 
a  show  place  (the  old  engravings  of  Boston  loved  to 
reproduce  it),  and  which  the  curious  may  still  gaze 
at,  though  it  has  been  somewhat  altered.  It  was  the 
navel  of  the  aristocratic  quarter,  and  stood  in  the 
"West  End"  of  the  New  England  London;  the 
"Saint  Germain"  of  the  Yankee  Paris.  A  block 
away,  to  the  left,  on  the  summit  of  Beacon  Hill,  was 
the  Hancock  house— as  bold  and  unmistakable  in 
the  landscape  as  its  owner's  signature  was  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Next  door,  "on  the 
right,  lived  the  Winthrops — the  town  residence  of 


24  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

that  historic  family.  In  front  stretched  the  forty- 
three  acres  of  Boston  Common.  Around  and  about 
thronged  the  dons  and  donas  of  the  capital.  Here, 
on  November  29th,  1811,  Wendell  was  born — the 
eighth  in  a  family  of  nine  ;  a  nest  of  brothers,  with 
three  sisters  in  it.1 


1  The  complete  list  of   the  children   of  John  and  Sally  (Walley) 
Phillips,  with  dates  of  birth  and  death,  is  as  follows  : 

1.  Thomas  Walley,  born  January  i6th,  1797  ;  died  1859. 

2.  Sarah  Hurd,  born  April  24th,  1799  ;  died    1837. 

3.  Samuel,  born  1801  ;  died  1817,  while  a  member  of  the  Sopho 
more  Class  of  Harvard  College. 

4.  Margaret,  born  November  2gth,  1802  ;  died 

5.  Miriam,  born  ;  died 

6.  John  Charles,  born  November  I5th,  1807  ;  died  1878. 

7.  George  William,  born  January  3d,  1810  ;  died  1880. 

8.  WENDELL,  born  November  2gth,  1811  ;  died  February  2d,  1884. 

9.  Grenville  Tudor,  born  August  I4th,  1816  ;  died  1863. 
Vide  "  Phillips  Genealogies,"  pp.  30-35. 


II. 

ENVIRONMENT. 

EVERY  thoughtful  observer  of  life  knows  that  the 
fireside  is  the  earliest  and  most  influential  of  schools. 
The  nursery  is  the  child's  university.  When  the 
nature  is  uninscribed  and  plastic  the  home  writes 
the  first  and  most  lasting  impressions.  More  that  is 
elementary — a  key  to  all  the  rest — is  learned  in  the 
cradle  and  beside  the  mother's  chair  than  in  all  after 
time.  Here  dawns  upon  the  mind  the  conception  of 
life.  Here  ideals  are  imparted.  Parents  decree  the 
future.  Happy  the  boy  or  girl  whose  heart  throbs 
with  the  memory  of  a  good  and  happy  home  ! 
Hence  in  studying  any  human  eminence  the  instant 
and  critical  inquiry  touches  this  decisive  point. 

It  was  a  kindly  turning  of  Providence  in  Wendell 
Phillips's  favor  that  he  was  born  when  and  where  he 
was.  His  high-chair  was  placed  in  a  Puritan  house 
hold.  This  means  much.  It  indicates  lofty  thought. 
It  stands  for  holy  living.  It  implies  a  domestic 
economy  regulated  by  gravity  and  decorum  and  vir 
tue  above  the  frivolities  of  the  hour.  It  signifies  that 
definite  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  were  implanted.  It 
shows  that,  in  conformity  with  Milton's  suggestion, 

"  To  measure  life  learn  thou  betimes," 

the  boy's  nascent  intelligence  was  seasonably  in 
structed  in  the  chief  articles  of  human  being  and 
doing. 


26  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Then,  too,  that  old  colonial  mansion  was  warm 
with  plenty.  John  Phillips,  being  wealthy,  was  a 
liberal  provider.  Mrs.  John  was  a  model  New  Eng 
land  housewife.  Consequently,  their  children,  one 
after  the  other,  opened  their  eyes  upon  delightful 
surroundings.  Abundance  laughed  in  the  larder. 
Books  elbowed  one  another  on  the  shelves  of  the 
library.  Pictures  smiled  down  from  the  walls.  Stat 
uary  breathed  from  the  corners  of  the  rooms.  Thus 
an  insensible  education  of  the  eye  and  ear  was  ever 
proceeding.  That  subtle  element  which  we  call 
aesthetic,  at  once  delicate  and  formative,  impregnated 
the  air.  Could  any  atmosphere  be  more  helpful  to 
one  who  should  by  and  by  become  an  orator  ? 

It  was  further  happy  for  young  Wendell  that  he 
was  one  of  many  children.  An  only  child  is  apt  to 
be  petted  and  spoiled.  Where  there  are  a  number, 
each  demands  so  much  that  no  one  can  get  all.  Be 
sides,  it  should  seem  to  be  a  physiological  fact  that 
the  friction  of  several  minds  from  the  nursery  up  to 
adult  life  is  necessary  to  the  best  development  of 
genius.  There  is  scarcely  an  instance  of  an  only 
child's  achieving  greatness.  Even  when  latent, 
ability  gasps  and  dies  for  lack  of  elbow-room  and 
play.  On  the  other  hand,  history  is  full  of  char 
acters  that  were  helped  out  and  thrust  forward  by 
early  attrition  at  home.  Thus  Napoleon  was  one  of 
thirteen  children  ;  Franklin  was  one  of  seventeen  ; 
General  Sherman  was  one  of  eleven  ;  Charles  Dickens 
was  one  of  eight  ;  Gladstone  was  one  of  seven. 
Those  large  American  families  which  were  universal 
a  generation  or  two  back — were  they  not  so  many 
schools  of  genius  ?  Their  infrequency  to-day — is 
this  not  suggestive,  ominous?  What  possibilities 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2/ 

our  fashionable  mothers  nowadays  forego  ;  the  pos 
sibilities  of  fostering  genius  and  winning  for  them 
selves  personal  distinction  ! 

John  Phillips  made  this  wise  rule  for  his  children  : 
"  Never  ask  another  to  do  for  you  what  you  can  do 
for  yourself  ;  and  never  ask  another  to  do  for  you 
what  you  would  not  do  for  yourself  if  you  could." 
There  is  no  end  of  self-reliance  in  this  rule,  and  a 
world  of  sound  democratic  philosophy,  besides. 
Knowing,  also,  the  uncertainty  of  fortune  in  America 
— a  game  of  blindman's-buff — and  remembering-, 
perhaps,  the  old  Jewish  saying,  "  He  who  does  not 
teach  his  children  a  trade,  brings  them  up  to  steal," 
he  encouraged  them  to  master  whatever  tools  of 
manual  labor  they  could  handle.  Accordingly,  as 
soon  as  he  got  on  his  feet,  Wendell  began  to  potter 
about  the  house  with  hammer  and  chisel  and  saw. 
In  later  life  he  claimed  .that  there  was  hardly  an  or 
dinary  trade  in  vogue  when  he  was  a  boy  at  which 
he  had  not  done  many  a  day's  work.1  Indeed,  his 
mother  said  :  "  A  good  carpenter  was  spoiled  when 
Wendell  became  a  lawyer." 

Moreover,  he  early  developed  another  trait,  more 
significant  of  his  future  career.  Feeling  the  push 
of  his  clerical  ancestry,  he  became  a  preacher  at  four 
or  five,  and  placing  a  Bible  in  a  chair  before  him,  and 
arranging  other  chairs  in  circles  about  the  room,  he 
would  harangue  these  wooden  auditors  (hardly  more 
wooden  than  some  of  the  human  ones  he  afterward 
addressed)  by  the  hour.3 


1  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson's  "Wendell  Phillips,"  published 
by  Lee  &  Shepard,   Boston,  1884. 

2  Testimony  of  Theodore  D.  Weld. 


28  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

"  Wendell,"  said  his  father  to  him,  one  day, 
"  don't  you  get  tired  of  this  ?" 

"No,  papa,"  replied  the  speaker,  "/don't  get 
tired,  but  it's  rather  hard  on  the  chairs  !" 

He  inherited  his  wit  from  his  father,  who  was  very 
bright.  When  a  member  of  the  Convention  for  the 
Revision  of  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  John 
Phillips,  in  debating  a  certain  proposed  change,  re 
marked  :  "  I  hope  our  case  may  not  be  like  that  of  a 
man  whose  epitaph  may  be  read  in  an  Italian  church 
yard  :  '  I  was  well  ;  I  wanted  to  be  better  ;  I  took 
medicine  ;  and  here  I  lie  !  ' 

Wendell  was  of  a  domestic  turn,  sympathetic  and 
affectionate,  and  open  as  the  daylight.  His  love  for 
his  mother  was  a  passion.  He  was  also  devoted  to 
his  nurse,  Polly.  When  the  birthday  of  this  good 
soul  came  round,  he  gave  her  a  needle-case,  bought 
with  his  own  pennies,  and  with  it  a  verse  which  he 
composed,  and  (with  a  single  later  exception  to  be 
cited  in  due  time)  his  first  and  only  poetic  flight. 

The  boy's  nearest  and  dearest  intimate,  residing  a 
block  away,  at  the  corner  of  Walnut  and  Chestnut 
streets,  was  J.  Lothrop  Motley,  destined  to  become 
famous  as  the  historian  of  the  Netherlands.  It  was 
David  and  Jonathan  with  these  two  ;  and  their  friend 
ship,  beginning  in  the  cradle,  lasted  to  the  grave. 
Phillips  was  the  elder  by  two  years  ;  but  Motley  was 
precocious — a  scholar  in  his  childhood.  Referring 
to  this  period,  the  orator  says  :  "  Motley  could  not 
have  been  eleven  years  old  when  he  began  writing 
a  novel.  It  opened,  I  remember,  not  with  '  one  soli 
tary  horseman,'  but  with  two,  riding  up  to  an  inn, 


1  Found  in  the  records  of  the  Convention. 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  29 

in  the  Valley  ol  the  Housatonic.  Neither  of  us  had 
ever  seen  the  Housatonic,  but  it  sounded  grand  and 
romantic.  Two  chapters  were  finished." 

Thomas  Gold  Appleton,  the  son  of  one  of  the 
patriarchs  of  New  England  manufactures,  who  had 
amassed  a  great  fortune,  also  lived  near  by,  and 
made  this  duo  a  trio.  Appleton  became  a  noted  wit 
and  raconteur,  and  joined  to  these  gifts  the  charm  of 
a  graceful  pen.  As  Phillips  speaks  of  Motley,  so 
Appleton  tells  of  both  :  "  Phillips  was  an  old  friend 
of  mine.  I  remember  how  we  used  to  play  together 
long  ago,  and  the  recollection  is  very  pleasant  in 
deed.  He  was  a  fine,  manly  little  fellow,  and  I  was 
very  proud  of  him  as  a  playmate.  Wendell  Phillips, 
J.  Lothrop  Motley,  and  I  frolicked  in  the  garret  of 
the  Motley  house  ;  and  I  recall  that  their  favorite 
pastime  used  to  be  to  strut  about  in  any  fancy  cos 
tume  they  could  find  in  the  corners  of  the  old  attic, 
and  shout  scraps  of  poetry  and  snatches  of  dialogue 
at  each  other.  It  was  a  fine  sight  to  watch  them, 
for  both  were  noble-looking  fellows  ;  and  even  then 
Wendell's  voice  was  a  very  pleasant  one  to  listen  to, 
and  his  gestures  as  graceful  as  could  be."  a 

Mr.  Appleton's  account  is  corroborated  by  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  (a  kinsman  of  Wendell  Phillips)  in 
his  admirable  "  Memoir  of  Motley"  :  "  If  one  could 
have  looked  into  that  garret  when  our  country  was 
not  far  advanced  in  its  second  score  of  years,  he 
might  have  found  these  three  boys  in  cloaks  and 
doublets  and  plumed  hats,  as  heroes  and  bandits, 
enacting  more  or  less  impromptu  melodramas."  * 

1  "Memoir  of  Motley,"  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  p.  7. 

2  Vide  Boston  Globe,  Phillips  Memorial  Edition,  February  4th,  1884. 

3  "  Memoir  of  Motley,"  p.  5. 


30  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Wendell  was  his  mother's  favorite'.1  Possessed 
herself  of  a  strong  character,  marked  by  singular 
simplicity  and  keen  insight,  she  early  discerned  the 
dormant  powers  of  her  gifted  son,  and  never  spared 
herself  in  the  endeavor  to  put  the  best  that  was  in 
her  into  him.  She  was  profoundly  religious.  Her 
foremost  purpose,  therefore,  was  to  root  him  in  faith 
and  hope  and  love.  She  used  to  take  him  aside  and 
pray  with  and  for  him.  Her  earliest  gift  to  him  was 
a  Bible — his  inseparable  companion  for  seventy 
years.2  She  taught  him  the  catechism  as  he  sat  on 
her  lap.  And  when  he  could  hardly  toddle  she 
guided  his  steps,  his  hand  in  hers,  to  the  family 
pew  on  Sunday  mornings.  "  Wendell,"  she  would 
say,  "  be  good  and  do  good  ;  this  is  my  whole  de 
sire  for  you.  Add  other  things  if  you  may — these 
are  central."  Under  such  wholesome  tuition  how 
could  the  lad's  moral  nature  do  otherwise  than 
healthily  develop  ? 

Physically,  he  was  strong  and  well.  Mrs.  Phillips 
was  almost  as  solicitous  for  his  bodily  as  for  his 
moral  welfare.  She  taught  him  the  laws  of  life  and 
health — the  gospel  of  hygiene — mens  sana  in  corporc 
saiio.  Those  habits  of  temperance,  exercise,  and 
purity  which  characterized  him  from  first  to  last  in 
a  remarkable  degree,  were  the  fruitage  of  her  in- 

1  His  own  testimony.  See  also  the  "  Eulogy  of  Wendell  Phillips," 
by  T.  D.  Weld,  p.  19. 

8  This  he  gave  just  before  his  death  to  his  intimate  friend,  Mrs. 
E.  S.  Crosby,  who  treasures  it  among  her  jewels.  In  it  he  marked 
two  passages,  which  he  requested  should  be  read  at  his  funeral,  viz., 
Ps.  23  and  i  Cor.  15  :  12.  These  were  so  read. 

3  Mr.  Phillips  repeated  these  words  to  the  writer  in  1868,  and  ten 
years  afterward,  when  his  attention  was  called  to  the  matter,  corrob 
orated  the  utterance. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  31 

structions.  A  wise  mother  wisely  at  work  fashioning 
the  soul  within,  and  the  form,  its  shrine,  without — 
what  usefulness  quite  equals  this  ? 

Both  parents  were  widely  and  variously  interested 
in  affairs  beyond  their  door-steps.  John  Phillips,  as 
we  have  noted,  was  in  public  life.  His  wife  was  a 
true  helpmeet.  His  concerns  were  hers.  Hence 
questions  and  issues  astir  out  there  in  the  streets 
were  brought  into  the  household,  and  talked  over 
at  the  fireside  and  around  the  table.  Persons  were 
characterized,  measures  were  discussed,  matters  of 
historical  moment  wrere  dwelt  upon,  in  full  family 
conclave.  In  this  way  the  children  gained  an  intel 
ligent  acquaintance  with  the  outside  world.  The 
hearthstone  was  a  vantage-ground  from  which  to 
survey,  in  seclusion,  but  not  in  exclusion,  the  multi 
form  life  of  the  commonwealth.  At  such  times,  we 
may  be  sure,  no  eyes  and  ears  were  wider  open  than 
Wendell's  ;  and  so  he  learned  from  the  start  that  his 
neighborhood  extended  farther  than  just  around  the 
corner. 

In  those  days  the  Revolutionary  tradition  was 
fresh  and  vigorous.  This  has  been  happily  called 
the  native  air  of  Wendell  Phillips.1  It  marked  and 
dominated  his  life.  Several  of  the  chief  actors  in  the 
drama  were  yet  on  the  stage — Jefferson  at  Monti- 
cello  ;  John  Adams  just  at  hand,  in  Quincy  ;  while 
Elbridge  Gerry  sat  in  the  Governor's  chair  of  Mas 
sachusetts  at  the  very  moment  of  his  birth.  All 
about  were  the  lofty  and  inspiring  scenes  immortal 
ized  by  these  and  kindred  heroes.  Yonder,'  in  sight 
from  his  door-sill,  loomed  Bunker  Hill.  Here  was 


George  William  Curtis's  "  Eulogy  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  5. 


32  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

the  church-tower  whose  lantern  started  Paul  Revere 
upon  his  ride.  There  was  Winter  Hill,  whose  can 
non-ball  struck  old  Brattle  Street  church.  Across 
the  Common  was  the  "  Old  South,"  dedicated  to 
God  by  the  Puritans,  and  to  liberty  by  Otis  and 
Warren.  Within  five  minutes'  walk  was  Faneuil 
Hall,  twice  the  cradle  of  freedom  :  the  freedom  of 
the  Colonies  and  the  freedom  of  the  negro  race  in 
America  ;  the  birthplace  and  waiting  theatre  of  this 
boy's  own  renown.  And  behold  !  the  very  elm 
under  whose  branches  Washington  first  drew  his 
sword.  What  an  environment  !  What  an  incen 
tive  ! 

Moving  daily  among  these  historic  associations, 
the  boy,  at  once  perceptive  and  receptive,  learned 
to  reverence  the  "  dead  but  sceptred  sovereigns  who 
still  rule  our  spirits  from  their  urns."  Having  him 
self  thrilled  beneath  their  touch,  he  came  to  value 
them  as  "  the  normal  school  of  politics."  He  voiced 
the  influence  of  his  environment,  long  years  after 
ward,  in  speaking  of  revolutionary  Boston  : 

41  We  had  a  signal  prominence  in  those  days.  It  was  not  our 
merit ;  it  was  an  accident,  perhaps.  But  it  was  a  great  acci 
dent  in  our  favor  that  the  British  Parliament  chose  Boston  as  the 
first  and  prominent  object  of  its  wrath.  It  was  on  the  men  of 
Boston  that  Lord  North  visited  his  revenge.  It  was  our  port 
that  was  to  be  shut,  and  its  commerce  annihilated.  It  was  Sam 
Adams  and  John  Hancock  who  enjoy  the  everlasting  reward  of 
being  the  only  names  excepted  from  the  royal  proclamation  of 
forgiveness. 

"  It  was  only  an  accident ;  but  it  was  an  accident  which,  in 
the  stirring  history  of  the  most  momentous  change  the  world 
has  seen,  placed  Boston  in  the  van.  Naturally,  therefore,  in  our 
streets  and  neighborhood  came  the  earliest  collision  between 
England  and  the  Colonies.  Here  Sam  Adams,  the  ablest  and 
ripast  statesman  God  gave  to  the  epoch,  forecast  those  measures 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  33 

which  welded  thirteen  colonies  into  one  thunderbolt,  and 
launched  it  at  George  III.  Here  Otis  magnetized  every 
boy  into  a  desperate  rebel.  Here  the  fit  successors  of  Hugh 
Peters  and  Knox  consecrated  their  pulpits  to  the  defence  of  that 
doctrine  of  the  freedom  and  sacredness  of  man,  which  the  State 
borrowed  so  directly  from  the  Christian  Church.  The  towers 
of  the  North  Church  rallied  the  farmers  to  the  Lexington  and 
Concord  fights  ;  and  these  old  walls  (the  'Old  South'  Church) 
echoed  the  people's  shout  when  Adams  brought  them  word  that 
Governor  Hutchinson  surrendered  and  withdrew  the  redcoats. 
Lingering  here  still  are  the  echoes  of  those  clashing  sabres  and 
jingling  spurs  that  dreamed  Warren  could  be  awed  to  silence. 
Otis's  blood  immortalizes  State  Street,  just  below  where  Attucks 
fell  (our  first  martyr),  and  just  above  where  zealous  patriots 
made  a  teapot  of  the  harbor. 

"  It  was  a  petty  town  of  some  twenty  thousand  inhabitants  ; 
but  '  the  rays  of  royal  indignation  collected  upon  it  served  only 
to-  illuminate  and  not  to  consume.'  Almost  every  one  of  its 
houses  had  a  legend.  Every  public  building  hid  what  was 
treasonable  debate,  or  bore  bullet-marks  or  bloodshed — evidence 
of  royal  displeasure.  It  takes  a  stout  heart  to  step  out  of  a 
crowd  and  risk  the  chances  of  support,  when  failure  is  death. 
The  strongest,  proudest,  most  obstinate  race  and  kingdom  on 
one  side  :  a  petty  town  the  assailant  ;  its  weapons,  ideas  ;  its 
trust,  God  and  the  right  ;  its  old-fashioned  men  patiently  arguing 
with  cannon  and  regiments  ;  blood  the  seal  of  the  debate,  and 
every  stone,  and  wall,  and  roof,  and  doorway  witness  forever  of 
the  angry  tyrant  and  sturdy  victim. 

"  Boston  boys  had  reason  to  be  thankful  for  their  birthright. 
The  great  memories,  noble  deeds,  and  sacred  places  of  the  old 
town  are  the  poetry  of  history  and  the  keenest  ripeners  of  char 
acter."  l 

Such,  then,  was  the  home,  such  the  instructions, 
and  such  the  scenes  in  which  were  passed  the  earli 
est  and  most  impressionable  years  of  Wendell  Phil 
lips. 


1  Oration  at  the  Old  South   Meeting  House,  for  its  preservation. 
June  I4th,  1876. 


III. 

SCHOOLING. 

To  the  formative  influences  of  the  home  and  the 
streets,  Wendell  Phillips  superadded  the  best  educa 
tional  advantages.  He  was  sent  in  his  eleventh  year 
to  the  Boston  Public  Latin  School — prolific  mother 
of  famous  sons.  This  landmark  of  ancient  Boston 
then  stood  on  School  Street,  between  Washington 
and  Tremont,  upon  a  portion  of  the  ground  now 
covered  by  the  Parker  House.  Mr.  A.  B.  Gould, 
an  ideal  pedagogue,  was  then  and  long  remained 
the  head-master.  The  school  was  largely  attended, 
and  the  scholars  represented  the  blue  blood  and  brains 
of  young  America  in  1822.  Motley  went  to  North 
ampton  to  fit  for  college,  an  institution  officered, 
in  part,  by  the  historian  Bancroft  ;'  so  that  he  and 
Phillips  did  not  continue  their  camaraderie  during  the 
five  years  from  1822  to  1827 — resuming  it  at  Har 
vard.  But  Appleton  remained  as  the  churn  of  Phil 
lips.  And  now  he  met  and  cemented  his  lifelong 
friendship  with  Charles  Sumner,  who  was  his  elder 
by  nearly  a  year,  and  who  was  in  .the  class  a  twelve 
month  ahead.  Sumner,  as  Phillips  himself  testifies, 
came  from  a  family  "  long  prominent  in  Massachu 
setts,"  a  family  "  noted  for  physical  as  well  as  intel- 


1  See  Holmes's  "Memoir;"  also  the  "Correspondence  of  J.  Lo- 
throp  Motley,"  edited  by  George  William  Curtis,  published  by 
Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York,  1889. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  35 

lectual  vigor."  '  The  senator  that  was  to  be  em 
bodied  even  now  the  physical  and  intellectual  traits 
of  his  ancestry  ;  but  at  the  Latin  School  "  he  was 
a  recluse  and  studious  boy,  hardly  ever  joining  in 
any  amusements  or  athletic  games  ;  and  this  mood 
lasted  through  his  college  years."  2 

Indeed,  Boston  then  discountenanced  athletics. 
Schools  and  colleges  existed  for  the  cultivation  of 
brain,  not  brawn.  Now  they  exist  for  the  culti 
vation  of  brawn,  not  brain.  Probably,  the  truth  lies 
in  that  golden  mean  which  the  classics  recommend 
— in  medias  res.  Anyhow,  Phillips  was  ahead  of  his 
times  in  this  respect  ;  as,  later,  he  was  in  other  ways. 
For  though  never  negligent  of  his  books,  he  dearly 
loved  athletics.  He  was  a  champion  boxer  and 
marksman,  and  fencer  and  oarsman,  and  horseman. 
Inheriting  a  magnificent  physique,  palpitating  with 
health,  he  trampled  prejudices  under  foot  and  would 
have  exercise,  and  plenty  of  it.3  His  standing  as 
a  scholar  was  excellent,  4  as  a  result,  no  doubt,  of 
those  despised  gymnastics.  The  curriculum  5  neces- 


1  Johnson's  New  Universal  Cyclopcedia^  article  "  Sumner,"  by  W. 
Phillips. 

a  Ib.         3  Such  is  the  united  testimony  of  his  classmates.         4  Ib. 

5  Here  it  is  as  it  then  stood:  In  Greek,  Valpy's  "Grammar," 
the  "  Delectus  Sententiarum  Graecarum  ;"  Jacobs's  "  Greek  Reader  ;" 
the  "  Four  Gospels"  and  two  books  of  Homer's  "  Iliad  ;"  in  Latin, 
Adams's  "  Latin  Grammar,"  "  Liber  Primus,"  "  Epiteme  Historiae 
Grseca?,"  "  Vivi  Romse,"  "  Phaedri  Fabulse,"  "  Cornelius  Nepos  ;" 
Ovid's  "Metamorphoses;"  Sallust's  "Catiline"  and  "Jugurthine 
War  ;"  Caesar  ;  Virgil  ;  Cicero's  "  Select  Orations  ;"  the  "  Agricola" 
and  "  Germania"  of  Tacitus,  and  the  "Odes"  and  "  Epodes"  of 
Horace  ;  in  the  study  of  mythology,  Tooke's  "  Pantheon  of  the 
Heathen  Gods"  served  as  a  text-book  ;  in  arithmetic,  Lacroix  was 
the  text-book  ;  in  reading,  Lindley  Murray's  "  English  Reader."  The 
school  was  so  large  that  each  class  was  subdivided  into  three  divisions. 


36  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

sitated  diligence  ;  and  there  was  head-master  Gould, 
ferule  in  hand,  to  enforce  attention  and  knock  learn 
ing  into  unwilling  heads. 

Wendell  continued  in  School  Street  those  habits 
~of  declamation  begun  among  the  chairs  at  home  and 
practised  in  Motley's  garret  ;  but  now  with  a  larger 
audience.  '  What  first  led  me  to  observe  him," 
writes  a  fellow-student,  "  and  fixed  him  in  my  mem 
ory,  was  his  elocution  ;  and  I  soon  came  to  look  for 
ward  to  declamation  day  with  interest,  mainly  on  his 
account,  though  many  were  admirable  speakers. 
The  pieces  chosen  were  chiefly  such  as  would  excite 
patriotic  feelings  and  an  enthusiasm  for  freedom." 
Phillips  himself  tells  us  that  already  he  "had  by 
heart  the  classic  eulogies  of  brave  old  men  and 
martyrs,"  and  carried  at  the  end  of  his  silver  tongue 
"  Greek  and  Roman  and  English  history."  2  Then 
and  afterward  he  embraced  every  opportunity  to 
hear  the  "  masters  of  assemblies  :"  his  own  father, 
Harrison  Gray  Otis,  Edward  Everett — every  great 
ness  of  the  day. 

In  1825  an  event  occurred  which  convulsed  the 
continent  with  enthusiasm — the  visit  of  Lafayette, 
When  the  illustrious  friend  of  Washington  landed  in 
Boston  the  city  was  in  a  frenzy.  Phillips  shall  tell 
us  about  his  share  in  the  scene  in  his  own  words, 
quoted  from  a  charming  address  which  he  made  in 
the  afternoon  of  his  career  to  a  vast  audience  in  the 
Music  Hall,  at  the  annual  School  Festival  of  Boston  : 3 

"  This  is  the  first  time  for  many  years  that  I  have  participated 
in  a  school  festival.  I  have  received  no  invitation  since  1824, 


1  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips, "  by  George  L.  Austin,  p.  29. 

2  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,  "by  Wendell  Phillips,  p.  226. 
8  July  25th,  1865.      Vide  p. 344  of  this  volume. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  37 

when  I  was  a  little  boy  in  a  class  in  the  Latin  School,  when  we 
were  turned  out  on  yonder  Common  in  a  grand  procession  at 
nine  o'clock  in  the  morning.  And  for  what  ?  Not  to  hear  fine 
music — no  ;  but  for  something  better  than  music,  that  thrilled 
more  than  eloquence — a  sight  which  should  live  in  the  memory 
forever,  the  best  sight  which  Boston  ever  saw — the  welcome  of 
Lafayette  on  his  return  to  this  country,  after  an  absence  of  a 
score  of  years.  I  can  boast,  boys  and  girls,  more  than  you.  I 
can  boast  that  these  eyes  have  beheld  the  hero  of  three  revolu 
tions,  this  hand  has  touched  the  right  hand  that  held  up  Han 
cock  and  Washington.  Not  all  this  glorious  celebration  can 
equal  that  glad  reception  of  the  nation's  benefactor  by  all  that 
Boston  could  offer  him — a  sight  of  her  children.  It  was  a  long 
procession  ;  and,  unlike  other  processions,  we  started  punctually 
at  the  hour  published.  They  would  not  let  us  wander  about, 
and  did  not  wish  us  to  sit  down.  I  there  received  my  first  lesson 
in  hero-worship.  I  was  so  tired  after  four  hours'  waiting,  I 
could  scarcely  stand  ;  but  when  I  saw  him — that  glorious  old 
Frenchman  ! — I  could  have  stood  until  to-day." 

Amid  such  scenes  and  experiences  five  tranquil 
years  of  preparation  were  passed.  The  boy  of  ten 
was  now  the  youth  of  fifteen— tall,  lithe,  and  grace 
ful  as  a  Greek  statue.  Leaving  the  Latin  School  with 
an  established  reputation  for  every  accomplishment 
of  body  and  mind  that  suited  his  age,  and  for  some 
more  mature,  he  stepped  up  into  the  broader  world 
of  Harvard.  This  was  in  1827. 

Although  his  home  was  just  in  sight  across  the 
river  Charles,  it  was  not  as  easy  then  to  'get  to  and 
from  Boston  and  Cambridge  as  it  is  now.  Besides, 
it  was  thought  best  to  give  Wendell  the  benefit  of  a 
college  entourage.  His  father  was  dead — had  died 
the  year  after  the  lad  was  entered  at  the  Latin 
School,  in  1823.  Thus  the  entire  responsibilit}^  for 
the  education  and  outfit  in  life  of  a  large  family  de 
volved  upon  the  mother.  The  sagacious  manner  in 


38  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

which  she  met  and  mastered  the  emergency  contrib 
uted,  no  doubt,  to  give  her  son  that  respect  for  and 
'appreciation  of  female  ability  which  became  one  of 
his  characteristic  traits.  But  we  must  pity  these 
two,  separated  now  for  the  first  time,  though  not  for 
long.  She  wept  on  his  neck,  commended  him  to 
God,  and  cautioned  him  about  his  linen  in  the  same 
breath,  and  told  him  never  to  forget  his  prayers  and 
his  Bible — and  regularly  to  air  his  room  !  True 
mother  and  true  saint  ;  an  enchanting  and  common 
combination  ;  embodying  the  divine  and  human,  and 
therefore  not  strangely  mixing  earth  and  heaven  in 
speech  and  action. 

When  Phillips  matriculated  the  Rev.  Dr.  John  T. 
Kirkland  was  president.  Two  years  later,  in  1829, 
Josiah  Quincy  succeeded  him,  the  same  Quincy  who 
had  divided  the  suffrages  of  Boston  Avith  Harrison 
Gray  Otis,  when  Wendell's  father  was  elected 
mayor  ;  a  man  both  good  and  great,  whose  life  God 
spared  to  a  serene  and  honored  evening  of  old  age. 
The  faculty  and  the  students — all  are  gone  !  To  read 
their  names  in  the  catalogue  of  1 827  is  like  spelling 
the  names  on  the  weather-stained  head-stones  in  a 
graveyard.  Harvard  is  old  enough  to  be  mellowed 
by  time.  A  certain  pensiveness  hangs  around  it 
and  mates  it  with  European  universities  dating  back 
to  the  Middle  Ages.  True,  youth  is  on  the  campus, 
and  the  dormitories  and  the  class-rooms  are  popu 
lous  with  animation  and  color.  Just  the  same,  yes 
terday  shadows  to-day.  The  old  clock  which  has 
tolled  away  so  many  generations  will  toll  away  this 
generation.1  The  grave  only  waits  !  An  historic 

1  See  this  thought  developed  by  Professor  Goldwin  Smith,  "  Lec 
tures  on  the  Study  of  History,"  p   220. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  39 

college  is  an  isthmus  separating  two  eternities,  yet, 
like  Suez,  canalled  to  marry  the  oceans  ;  and  it  is 
this  relation  which  it  sustains  to  the  past  and  the 
future  which  endows  it  with  such  influence  over  the 
imagination  of  dreamy  and  poetic  youth. 

Phillips  became  intimate  with  President  Quincy  — 
as  intimate  as  was  possible  considering  their  differ 
ence  in  age  and  station.  With  the  president's  son, 
Edmund  Quincy,  he  formed  at  this  .time  an  associa 
tion  which  ran  through  both  lives  as  veins  run 
through  a  block  of  marble. 

Young  Quincy  was  several  years  older  than  Phil 
lips  ;  but  they  got  together  and  stayed  together. 
Sumner  was  a  Sophomore  when  Phillips  entered  the 
Freshman  Class  ;  but  in  this  case  friendship  over 
leaped  the  boundary  of  class,  as  in  the  case  of  Quincy 
it  had  of  age.  Now,  too,  Motley  came  to  Harvard, 
and  those  Beacon-Hill  relations  were  cemented 
anew.  Speaking  of  Motley,  Phillips  gives  interest 
ing  testimony — lets  us  behind  the  scenes  : 

"  His  quickness  of  apprehension  was  wonderful.  During  our 
first  year  at  college,  though  the  youngest  in  the  class,  ne  stood 
third,  I  think,  or  second  in  rank  ;  and  ours  was  an  especially 
able  class.  Yet  to  maintain  this  standing  he  neither  cared  nor 
needed  to  make  any  effort.  Too  young  to  feel  any  responsibil 
ities,  and  not  yet  awake  to  ambition,  he  became  so  negligent 
that  he  was  '  rusticated.'  He  came  back  sobered  and  worked 
rather  more  ;  but  with  no  effort  for  college  rank  thenceforward. 
In  his  room  he  had  a  small  writing-table  with  a  shallow  drawer  ; 
I  have  often  seen  it  half-full  of  sketches,  unfinished  poems,  solilo 
quies,  a  scene  or  two  of  a  play,  prose  portraits  of  pet  characters, 
etc.  These  he  would  read  to  me,  though  he  never  volunteered 
to  do  so  ;  and  every  now  and  then  he  burned  the  whole,  and 
began  to  fill  the  drawer  again."1 


1  "  Memoir  of  J.  Lothrop  Motley,"  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  p.  8. 


40  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

It  is  further  recorded  of  Motley,  that  one  day  his 
tutor  came  into  his  room  and  found  the  table  littered 
up  with  novels  instead  of  text-books. 

"  How  is  this  ?"  asked  the  tutor. 

4  Well,"  was  the  answer,  "  you  see,  I  am  pursuing 
a  course  of  historical  reading.  I  have  now  reached 
the  novels  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Take  them  in 
bulk,  they  are  tough  reading  !"  ' 

Phillips  had  from  the  start  and  always  retained  an 
intense  sense  of  the  ludicrous.  These  and  such  like 
experiences  of  his  crony  he  appreciated  then  and 
told  years  later  with  inimitable  effect.  Of  himself, 
however,  no  such  stories  can  be  related.  Though 
never  a  hermit  like  Sumner,  neither  was  he  a  scape 
grace  like  Motley.  Between  the  two  in  age  he  was 
enough  like  both  to  win  their  confidence  and  com 
mand  their  respect.  In  college  rank  he  stood  well 
up  toward  the  head.2  But  his  interests  were  too 
broad  and  diversified  for  the  valedictorian's  crown. 
At  Harvard,  as  in  the  Latin  School,  he  gave  a  good 
deal  of  attention  to  athletics,  and  continued  his  box 
ing,  fencing,  boating,  and  horse-riding,  becoming  an 
expert  in  these  manly  accomplishments.3  He  was 
also  an  omnivorous  reader,  history  and  mechanics 
being  his  specialties.4  His  passion  was  horses  ;  in 
later  life  he  made  a  personal  friend  of  Rarey,  the 
horse-tamer. 

When  Phillips  went  to  Cambridge  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Lyman  Beecher  was  the  Jupiter  of  the  Boston  pul 
pit.  Every  Sunday,  and  often  on  week-day  nights, 


1  "  Memoir  of  J.  Lothrop  Motley,"  by  Oliver   Wendell    Holmes, 
p.  9. 

2  The  Rev.  Edgar  Buckingham,  class-secretary  of  the  Class  of  1831. 

3  Ib.  4  Ib. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  4! 

he  thundered  and  lightened  in  Hanover  Street 
church.  He  shook  and  kindled  the  town.  Thou 
sands  throbbed  under  his  preaching.  His  special 
mission  was  to  combat  Unitarianism,  which  then  sat 
in  all  the  high  places.  One  day  some  one  said  to 
him  : 

"  Well,  Dr.  Beecher,  how  long  do  you  think 
it  will  take  you  to  destroy  Unitarianism  in  Bos 
ton  ?" 

"  Humph  !"  was  the  gruff  reply,  "  several  years, 
I  suppose— roots  and  all." 

Among  the  many  attracted  to  hear  his  discourses 
was  young  Phillips,  whose  immediate  family  was 
orthodox  in  creed.  As  a  child  he  had  learned  his 
first  lessons  in  theology  with  his  mother's  lap  for  an 
altar.  Now  those  childish  impressions  were  deep 
ened  and  confirmed  by  Dr.  Beecher,  never  afterward 
to  change.  He  passed  through  the  experience  called 
conversion.  — 

A  personal  friend  asked  him,  not  long  before  his\ 
death  :  "  Mr.  Phillips,  did  you  ever  consecrate  your 
self  to  God?" 

"  Yes,"  he  answered,  "  when  I  was  a  boy  fourteen 
years  of  age,  in  the  old  church  at  the  North  End, 
I  heard  Lyman  Beecher  preach  on  the  theme,  '  You 
belong  to  God  ;'  and  I  went  home  after  that  service, 
threw  myself  on  the  floor  in  my  room,  with  locked 
doors,  and  prayed,  '  O  God,  I  belong  to  Thee  ; 
take  what  is  Thine  own.  I  ask  this,  that  whenever 
a  thing  be  wrong  it  may  have  no  power  of  tempta 
tion  over  me  ;  whenever  a  thing  be  right,  it  may 
take  no  courage  to  do  it.'  From  that  day  to  this  it 
has  been  so.  Whenever  I  have  known  a  thing  to 
be  wrong,  it  has  held  no  temptation.  Whenever  I 


42  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

have  known  a  thing  to  be  right,  it  has  taken  no  cour 
age  to  do  it."  ' 

S  The  event  here  referred  to  occurred  in  1826,  a 
year  previous  to  his  matriculation.  With  this  seri 
ousness  upon  him,  like  the  halo  around  a  saint's  head 
on  the  canvas  of  the  old  painters,  he  went  to  col 
lege. 

Now  let  us  stop  and  look  at  his  portrait,  as  drawn 
by  several  of  his  classmates. 

Referring  to  his  religious  experience,    the   Rev. 
Dr.  Edgar  Buckingham  remarks  : 

4  The  excitement  of  the  revival  gradually  passed 
off — that  is,  in  a  few  years.  But  his  conversion  for 
quite  a  while  made  a  deep  impression  on  his  com 
panions,  awakening  their  reverence  (the  word  is  not 
too  strong)  for  this  religious  boy.  I  remember  well 
his  appearance  of  devoutness  during  morning  and 
evening  prayers  in  the  chapel,  which  many  attended 
only  to  save  their  credit  with  the  authorities.  Dodd- 
ridge's  '  Expositor '  Wendell  bore  to  college  in  his 
Freshman  year  (a  present,  I  think,  from  his  mother, 
a  new  volume),  to  be  his  help  in  daily  thought 
and  prayer."  2 

Another  of  his  classmates  refers  to  the  same  ex 
perience  : 

Before  entering  college  he  had  been  the  subject 
of  religious  revival.  Previous  to  that  he  used  to 
give  way  to  violent  outbursts  of  temper,  and  his 
schoolmates  would  sometimes  amuse  themselves  by 
deliberately  working  him  into  a  passion.  But  after 

1  Evidence  of  Rev.  O.  P.  Gifford,  D.D.,  at  Eighth  Annual  Convex 
lion  of  the  United  Societies  of  Christian  Endeavor.  Reported  in  the 
Golden  Rule,  August  15th,  1889,  p.  737. 

•  Cited  in  Austin's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  38. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  43 

his  conversion  they  could  never  succeed  in  getting 
him  out  of  temper." 

Truly,  a  conversion  which  makes  a  boy  master  of 
himself  must  be  genuine  !  But  how  about  other 
traits  of  the  young  collegian  ? 

'  To  my  mind,"  writes  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bucking 
ham,  "  Phillips  was  the  most  beautiful  person  I  ever 
saw — handsome,  indeed,  in  form  and  features  ;  but 
what  I  mean  by  his  beauty  was  his  grace  of  charac 
ter — his  kindly,  generous  manners,  his  brightness  of 
mind,  his  perfect  purity  and  whiteness  of  soul.  His 
face  was  very  fair,  though  it  could  not  have  been 
called  pale  ;  and  it  had  a  radiance  from  which  shone 
forth  the  soul  that  dwelt  within.  He  was  of  a 
wealthy  family  ;  and  with  manly  beauty,  with  a  most 
attractive  face,  'a  smile  that  was  a  benediction/ 
with  manners  of  superior  elegance,  with  conversa 
tion  filled  with  the  charms  of  literature,  with  biog 
raphy  and  history,  full  of  refined  pleasantry,  with 
never  a  word  or  thought  that  the  purest  might  not 
know  and  listen  to,  it  was  no  wonder  that  his  society 
was  courted  and  respected  by  those  who  had  wealth 
at  their  command,  and  still  more  by  those  young 
men  who  came  from  the  South,  It  is  said  that  he 
was  proud  ;  that  he  was  a  born  patrician.  In  a  good 
sense  of  the  word,  he  was  a  born  patrician  ;  in  the 
sense  of  a  French  expression,  '  noblesse  oblige,'  he  felt 
the  responsibility  of  his  birth  and  education— his 
responsibility  to  keep  himself^  pure,  upright,  and 
good.  I  would  not  say  that  he  never  developed  a 
any  time  anything  of  worldly  pride  also.  I  believe 


1  Cited  by  Theodore  D.  Weld,  in  his  "  Eulogy   of  Wendell  Phil 
lips,"  p.  16. 


44  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

he  did  look  down  with  scorn  on  that  vulgarity,  that 
form  of  professed  democracy,  whose  virtue  was  to 
envy  those  better  and  purer  than  themselves,  as  well 
as  loftier  in  position.  I  never  knew  that  he  scorned 
any  one  who  was  merely  poor.  But  it  happened, 
as  one  of  the  strangest  of  all  human  phenomena,  that 
this  young  man  who,  in  all  his  public  life,  had  been 
the  defender  of  the  down-trodden  and  despised,  was 
he  especial  pet,  in  his  Junior  and  Senior  years,  in 
college,  of  the  aristocracy  in  that  institution.  In 
deed,  he  had  the  credit  of  being  their  leader  ;  they 
put  him  up  to  it.  The  democracy  of  the  class  be 
came  excited  to  the  highest  degree — for  reasons  that 
I  do  not  now  recall,  and  believe  I  never  knew  (and 
I  dare  say  there  were  none) — and  it  was  determined 
to  put  Phillips  and  others  of  his  associates  down. 
I  think  he  used  some  of  his  fine  scorn  at  that 
time.  We  had  then  a  military  organization,  a  great 
pride  of  ours — the  '  Harvard  Washington  Corps  '- 
and  though  our  uniform  was  black  coats  and  white 
pantaloons,  and  the  officers  had  gold  buttons  on 
their  coats,  with  the  usual  feathers,  epaulets,  and 
sashes,  yet,  in  my  mind  then,  no  company,  how 
ever  richly  uniformed,  made  a  handsomer  appear 
ance.  When  the  time  came  for  the  election  of  officers 
by  the  class  to  which  we  belonged,  a  great  struggle 
took  place.  It  ended  in  a  compromise.  Phillips 
was  not  chosen  captain.  A  young  man  from  the 
South,  yet  not.  of  the  acknowledged  aristocracy — a 
young  man  of  herculean  stature  and  proportions,  one 
who  had  never  taken  sides  in  this  social  quarrel,  and 
whom  the  whole  college  would  have  said  was  prop 
erly  the  man  for  the  place — was  chosen  ;  and  Phillips 
became  one  of  the  highest  officers — lieutenant,  I 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  45 

think.     I   never  asked   him  what  he  learned  about 
Southern  pride  and  assumption  in  those   days.     But^ 
was  it  not  singular  that,  from   having-  been  the  most  \ 
admired  companion  and  most  ardent  champion  of  ) 
Southern  men  in  his  youth,  he   should  have  become  / 
in  after  years  an  opponent  of  Southern  principles,  j 
than  whom  there  has  been  none  more  powerful  in  I 
the  country  ?"  '  <r 

Hear,  next,  what  his  room-mate,  the  Rev.  John 
Tappen  Pierce,  of  Illinois,  has  to  say  : 

"  Our  acquaintance  began  at  Harvard,  in  1827, 
when  we  first  met  to  be  examined.  I  was  then  a  lad 
of  fifteen,  but  two  weeks  younger  than  Phillips. 
Though  I  had  never  seen  him  before  I  was  drawn  to 
him  by  irresistible  attraction,  and  I  always  found 
him  true  as  magnet  to  steel.  I  had  engaged  a  room 
mate,  otherwise  we  should  have  roomed  together 
the  first  year  ;  but,  just  before  entering  the  Sopho 
more  Class  in  1828,  Phillips  came  to  my  room  and 
proposed  our  partnership,  which  I  joyfully  accepted  ; 
and  here  began  our  life  intimacy,  a  sweet  and  en 
during  tie. 

'  I  will  speak  first  of  his  moral  traits.  He  never 
said  or  did  anything  unbecoming  to  Christian  char 
acter.  What  President  Kirkland  said  in  his  '  Life  of 
Fisher  Ames  '  was  eminently  true  of  Phillips  :  '  He 
needed  not  the  sting  of  guilt  to  make  him  virtuous.' 
His  character  shone  conspicuous.  He  was  above 
pretence — a  sincere,  conscientious,  devoted  friend. 
He  had  a  deep  love  for  all  that  was  true  and  honor 
able  ;  always  detested  a  mean  action.  His  Bible 
was  always  open  on  the  centre-table.  His  character 


1  Austin's  ^  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  pp.  36,  38  sq. 


46  WENDELL   HIILLIPS. 

was  perfectly  transparent ;  there  were  no  subter 
fuges,  no  pretences  about  him.  He  was  known  by 
all  to  be  just  what  he  seemed. 

"  Second,  his  social  traits  :  He  was  the  favorite 
of  the  class.  If  any  class  honor  was  to  be  conferred, 
who  so  likely  to  have  it  as  he  ?  Nor  would  any  dis 
pute  his  claim.  Though  very  modest  in  his  self-esti 
mate,  every  one  willingly  yielded  him  the  palm. 
Upon  the  death  of  a  valued  classmate,  Thompson, 
none  but  Phillips  must  pronounce  the  eulogy. 

'  Third  :  His  standard  as  a  scholar  was  among 
the  first  in  a  large  class.  This  is  saying  not  a  little, 
when  we  recall  the  names  of  Motley,  the  historian  ; 
Simmons,  the  distinguished  orator  ;  Ames,  United 
States  charg^  d'affaires ;  McKean,  a  true  son  of 
genius  ;  the  Rev.  Dr.  Morrison,  late  editor  of  the 
Unitarian  Review ;  Mayor  Shurtleff  and  Dr.  Shat- 
tuck,  of  Boston  ;  Pickering,  the  Boston  lawyer  ; 
Judge  Darrell,  of  New  Orleans  ;  Joseph  Williams, 
Lieutenant-Governor  of  Michigan  and  president  of 
a  State  college  there. 

"As  an  orator  Phillips  took  the  highest  stand  of 
any  graduate  of  our  day.  I  never  knew  him  to  fail 
in  anything  or  hesitate  in  a  recitation.  In  mathe 
matics  he  was  facile  princeps ;  natural  and  moral 
philosophy,  history,  the  ancient  languages — in  all 
pre-eminent ;  equally  good  in  all  branches." 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Morrison,  to  whom   Mr.  Pierce  re 
fers  in  the  above  extract,  testifies  as  follows  : 
\  "  "  Wendell  Phillips  in  college  and  Wendell  Phillips 
\six  years  after  were  entirely  different  men.     In  col- 
Plege   he   was  the  proud   leader  of  the  aristocracy. 
[From  what  he  then  was  no  one  could  possibly  pre 
dict  what  he  afterward  became,  as  the  defender  and 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  47 

personal  friend  of  the  helpless  and  despised.  There 
was  always  the  same  grace  and  dignity  of  personal 
bearing,  the  same  remarkable  power  of  eloquence, 
whether  in  extempore  debate  or  studied  declamation. 
It  was  a  great  treat  to  hear  him  declaim  as  a  college 
exercise.  He  was  always  studying  remarkable  pas 
sages,  as  an  exercise  in  composition,  and  to  secure 
the  most  expressive  forms  of  language.  In  this  he 
did  not  accept  the  aid  of  teachers.  His  method  was  / 
his  own.  **•• 

"  His  classmates  would  have  selected  him  as  one 
born  to  be  a  power  among  men.  No  other  student 
in  those  days  could  compare  with  him  in  that  re 
spect.  He  was  already  distinguished  for  his  unsul 
lied  purity  of  character.  But  it  was  not  easy  to  un- 
derstand  how  this  aristocratic  leader  of  a  privileged 
class  could  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  most  despised  of 
his  race.  The  simple  and  true  explanation  is  that  a 
new  thought  had  come  in  as  the  central  motive  of 
his  life.  His  attention  was  drawn  to  the  great  na 
tional  curse  and  crime  of  his  day,  and  he  gave  him| 
self  heart  and  soul  to  the  cause. ' '  1 

While  his  rhetorical  genius  made  him  the  easy 
master  of  the  college  platform,  his  social  qualities 
pushed  him  into  leadership  in  the  numerous  societies 
of  Harvard.  He  was  a  member  of  the  "  Phi  Beta 
Kappa,"  by  virtue  of  his  .scholarship — that  exclusive 
brotherhood  being  confined  to  the  first  sixteen  in 
each  class.  He  was  president  of  the  "  Porcellian," 
of  the  "  Hasty-Pudding  Club,"  and  of  the  "  Gentle 
man's  Club" — circles  which  admitted  only  the  jett- 
nesse  dorce.  At  this  time  there  was  nothing  of  the 


1  Vide  Weld's  "  Eulogy,"  pp.  14. 


48  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 


dical   about  him — hardly  a  flavor  of  democracy. 
|He  seemed  to  be  the  predestined  leader  of  American 
I  conservatism,  the  inevitable  champion  of  class  dis 
tinctions  and  elegant  leisure.     Through  these  years 
he  suggests  the  Cavalier,  never  the  Puritan — Pha 
raoh,   not   Moses.     He   was  so  far  from  radicalism 
that  his  maiden  speech  at  college  was  made  against 
the  proposed  establishment  of  a  temperance  society 
in  his  class,  and  he  killed  it ! 

One  day  Phillips  went  into  Boston  to  attend  a 
Whig  meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall.  It  was  during  the 
Presidential  campaign  of  1828,  when  Adams  was 
running  against  Jackson.  As  the  student  ascended 
the  stairs  he  heard  for  the  first  time  the  powerful, 
metallic  voice  of  Daniel  Webster  arguing  in  favor  of 
the  tariff  ;  not  very  musical,  he  thought,  as  Clay's 
was,  or  Harrison  Gray  Otis's,  but  full  of  strength. 
As  he  entered  the  hall  and  listened  he  speedily  de 
tected  that  "his  statement  was  argument."  After 
this  he  frequently  heard  Webster  in  the  courts  and 
at  political  gatherings — always  with  admiration  for 
his  gifts.  The  great  expounder,  he  found,  was  pon 
derous,  almost  heavy  on  ordinary  occasions.  It 
took  a  crisis  to  rouse  him — then  he  was  sublime.1 

Mr.  Phillips  was  graduated  in  1831,  with  a  class 
which  numbered  sixty-five  members.  WThatnext?2 


1  "  Recollections  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  by  F.  B.   Sanborn  (MS.). 

2  Austin  says,  in  his  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  34  : 
"  During  his  college  life  Mr.  Phillips  rarely  read  speeches,  or  even 
had  any  taste  for  oratory."     This  is  an  evident  error,  and  is  contra 
dicted  by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  all  his  classmates,  as  witness  the 
authorities  cited, 


IV. 

THE    YOUNG    LAWYER. 

THE  orthodox  steps  in  the  upward  course  of  a 
well-born  and  rich  young  Bostonian,  fifty  years  ago, 
were  :  First,  the  Public  Latin  School  ;  next  Harvard 
College  ;  and  then  the  Harvard  Law  School.  Two 
of  these  steps  Phillips  had  already  taken  ;  in  the  au 
tumn  of  1831  he  took  the  third,  and  seated  himself 
to  be  instructed  by  Judge  Story — a  new  Paul  at  the 
feet  of  a  modern  Gamaliel.  Meantime,  his  college 
classmates  were  scattered  everywhither — most  of 
them  dismissed  into  oblivion  ;  for  many  graduates 
when  they  get  a  diploma  only  add  a  sheepskin  to 
a  sheep's-head,  and  provoke  the  spectators  to  cry 
"  Bah  !"  Some  of  the  Class  of  '33,  however,  drew 
out  of  the  crowd  of  nonentities.  Of  those  mentioned 
in  these  pages  Appleton  sauntered  off  to  a  life  of 
belles  -  lettres  enjoyment  —  literary  gormandism. 
Motley  sailed  away  to  continue  his  studies  in  Berlin 
and  Gottingen,  and  by  and  by  to  write  himself  into 
immortality.  Sumner  went,  with  Phillips,  to  the 
Harvard  Law  School,  where  the  two  continued  and 
increased  their  intimacy. 

Judge  Story  was  a  legal  luminary  of  the  first  mag 
nitude — the  peer  of  Marshall.  His  students  wor 
shipped  him.  Both  Phillips  and  Sumner  shared  in 
this  feeling,  and  counted  it  as  chief  among  their 
privileges  that  they  might  sit  on  his  benches.  The 


5O  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

school  was  divided  into  three  classes — the  Senior, 
Middle,  and  Junior  ;  and  the  course  covered  three 
years.  In  those  early  days  the  attendance  was  com 
paratively  small,  the  whole  number  of  students  being 
forty  in  1833.  This  was  a  happy  circumstance  for 
them  because  they  were  individualized.  Each  re 
ceived  a  fair  share  of  the  preceptor's  personal  atten 
tion,  and  the  instruction  took  the  form  of  a  recitation 
rather  than  of  a  lecture,  as  now.  The  progress  was 
correspondingly  rapid  ;  while  the  relations  of  the 
students  to  the  professors  and  to  one  another  were 
close  and  delightful.  Phillips  at  once  took  and  main 
tained  a  high  rank  ;  though  he  did  not  permit  his 
outside  interests  to  dwarf  by  disuse.  The  practice 
of  athletics  was  rigidly  adhered  to,  while  his  miscel 
laneous  reading  broadened  and  deepened.  His  one 
regret  at  this  time  was  that  his  studies  continued  to 
separate  him  from  his  widowed  mother,  for  the  Law 
School  was  at  Cambridge.  But  he  knew  her  heart 
and  prayers  were  with  him,  and  both  got  consola 
tion  from  frequent,  if  brief  meetings. 

He  was  especially  fond  of  those  aspects  and  prin 
ciples  of  the  law  which  presented  it  as  a  science,  as 
the  source  and  seat  of  human  justice.  The  saying 
of  Coke  made  a  great  impression  on  him,  that  "  rea 
son  is  the  life  of  the  law  ;  nay,  the  common  law  itself 
is  nothing  else  but  reason  ;"  '  and  he  would  have 
agreed  with  Froude,  that  "  our  human  laws  are,  or 
should  be,  but  the  copies  of  the  eternal  laws,  so  far 
as  we  can  read  them."  a  But  while  particularly  at 
tracted  *tOAvard  legal  philosophy,  Phillips  was  not 
lacking  in  the  grasp  of  details,  nor  reluctant  to  sub- 


1  First  Institute.    2  "  Short  Studies  in  Great  Subjects,"  "  Calvinism.' 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  $1 

ject  himself  to  the  drudgery  incidental  to  the  mas 
tery  of  forms  and  statutes.1  He  did  not  find  any 
department  of  the  study  dry.2  How  could  he,  when 
the  fire  of  a  mind  like  Story's  kindled  it  ? 

In  a  characteristic  passage  Mr.  George  William 
Curtis  paints  Wendell  Phillips  as  his  study  of  the 
law  proceeded  :  "  Doubtless  the  sirens  sang  to  him, 
as  to  the  noble  youth  of  every  country  and  time. 
If,  musing  over  Coke  and  Blackstone,  in  the  full 
consciousness  of  ample  powers  and  of  fortunate  op 
portunities,  he  sometimes  forecast  the  future,  he  saw 
himself  succeeding  Fisher  Ames,  and  Harrison  Gray 
Otis,  and  Daniel  Webster,  rising  from  the  bar  to  the 
Legislature,  from  the  Legislature  to  the  Senate; 
from  the  Senate — who  knew  whither  ? — the  idol  of 
society,  the  applauded  orator,  the  brilliant  champion 
of  the  elegant  repose  and  the  cultivated  conserva-l 
tism  of  Massachusetts.  The  delight  of  social  ease,| 
the  refined  enjoyment  of  taste  in  letters  and  art, 
opulent  leisure,  professional  distinction,  gratified 
ambition — all  these  came  and  whispered  to  the  young 
student.  And  it  is  the  force  that  can  tranquilly  put 
aside  such  blandishments  with  a  -smile,  and  accept 
alienation,  qutlaw_ry,  ignominy  and  apparent  defeat^ 
11  need  be,  nqiflss  than  the  courage  which  grapples 
with  poverty  and  outward  hardship?  and  climbs  over 
them  to  worldly  prosperity,  which  is  the  test  of  the 
finest  manhood.  Only  he  who  knows  the  worth  of 
what  he  renounces  gains  the  true  blessing  of  renun 
ciation."  3 

At  this  hour,  however,  only  the  anticipations  were 

1  The  remark  of  Judge  Hopkinson,  his  classmate. 

9  /£.,  Sumner's  Testimony  also. 

8  "  Eulogy  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  pp.  6,  7. 


52  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

present — the  renunciation  was  hidden  behind  the 
impenetrable  veil  of  futurity. 

Three  years,  exactly,  after  the  commencement  of 
his  legal  course,  Phillips  found  himself  in  the  pos 
session  of  his  professional  degree,  viz.,  in  September, 
1834.  With  the  blessing  of  Judge  Story,  who  fore 
told  for  him  an  unprecedented  career  (which  he  had, 
but  in  a  very  different  sense  from  Story's  prophecy), 
and  with  the  even  more  valued  benediction  of  his 
mother,  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar. 

Soon  after  this  important  event,  he  went  away  on 
a  short  tour,  travelling  as  far  as  Philadelphia.  Here, 
at  a  fashionable  boarding-house,  whither  he  had 
gone  as  the  escort  of  a  bevy  of  ladies,  he  met  Tre- 
lawny,  the  English  friend  of  Byron  and  Shelley. 
Trelawny  was  there  in  attendance  upon  Mrs.  Fanny 
Kemble  Butler,  the  leading  actress  of  the  day,  of 
whom  he  professed  to  be  an  admirer.  He  had  been 
in  South  Carolina,  at  the  house  of  the  lady's  hus 
band,  Pierce  Butler,  and  was  on  his  way  to  Niagara. 
The  Englishman,  who  had  learned,  or  unlearned, 
his  morality  in  the  clubs  of  Pall  Mall  and  with  the 
brace  of  scapegrace  poets  with  whom  he  had  asso 
ciated  on  the  Continent,  shocked  the  young  Puritan 
by  the  open  expression  of  atrocious  sentiments  re 
specting  women — boasting  of  his  success  with  them, 
and  declaring  that  no  woman  ought  to  live  beyond 
the  age  of  twenty.1 

Facing  homeward,  Phillips  stopped  for  a  few  days 
in  New  York.  In  some  way  he  made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  Aaron  Burr  during  his  tarry.  The  slayer  of 
Hamilton  was  exceedingly  polite  and  showed  him 

1  "  Recollections  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  by  F.  B.  Sanborn  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  53 

the  sights.  Soon  after  his  return  Burr  visited  Bos 
ton.  Phillips  called  on  him  at  the  Tremont  Hotel, 
and  offered  to  act  the  part  of  a  cicerone.  Among 
other  places  they  went  to  the  Athenaeum,  then  on 
Pearl  Street,  to  see  the  pictures  and  look  at  the 
library.  As  they  walked  down  the  hall,  between 
the  alcoves,  Phillips  caught  sight  of  a  bust  of  Ham 
ilton,  one  of  the  ornaments  of  the  library,  which  he 
had  forgotten  was  there.  He  tried  on  some  pretext 
to  draw  Burr  in  another  direction  ;  but  he,  too,  had 
seen  the  bust  and  marched  straight  up  to  it.  He 
stood  facing  it  for  a  moment,  then  turned  and  said  : 
"  A  remarkable  man— a  very  remarkable  man." 
Upon  this  he  wheeled  on  both  heels  in  military  style 
and  moved  on  again  with  great  composure.1 

Mr.  Phillips's  first  public  honor — his  very  earliest 
recognition  as  an  orator — came  from  New  Bedford, 
whose  authorities,  just  after  his  graduation,  invited 
him  to  deliver  the  Fourth  of  July  address.  The  late 
Charles  T.  Congdon,  an  eminent  journalist,  paints 
a  pen-portrait  of  the  scene  : 

'  When  Phillips  stood  up  in  the  pulpit  I  thought 
him  the  handsomest  man  I  had  ever  seen.  When 
he  began  to  speak,  his  elocution  seemed  the  most 
perfect  to  which  I  had  ever  listened,  and  I  was  sure 
that  the  orations  of  Cicero  were  given  with  smaller 
effect.  Even  then  the  future  orator  of  the  Abolition 
ists  was  an  admirable  speaker  ;  nor  did  he,  though 
scarcely  past  his  majority,  lack  the  grace  and  force 
of  language  with  which  the  whole  country  has  since 
become  familiar."  2 


1  "  Recollections  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  by  F.  B.  Sanborn  (MS.). 
4  "  Recollections  of  a  Journalist." 


54  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Desiring  to  prepare  himself  thoroughly  before 
engaging  in  practice,  the  young  lawyer  went  from 
Boston  to  Lowell,  and  entered  the  office  of  Thomas 
(afterward  Judge)  Hopkinson  ;  his  purpose  being  to 
familiarize  himself  with  the  code  and  with  technical 
methods.  Mr.  Hopkinson  had  been  his  classmate 
at  the  Law  School,  but  was  older.  He  made  both 
fame  and  money  from  the  start,  and  welcomed  the 
brilliant  Bostonian  with  both  hands  outstretched. 
Fain  would  he  have  kept  him  in  Lowell  and  admitted 
him  into  partnership,1  but  the  pet  of  Judge  Story 
had  other  plans.  After  a  few  months  of  persistent 
toil  his  object  was  accomplished,  and  he  returned  to 
Boston,  not,  however,  before  meeting  and  beginning 
an  acquaintance  with  that  singular  man,  Benjamin 
F.  Butler,  then  an  errand  boy  in  a  neighboring  law 
office.2 

And  now  at  last  Wendell  Phillips,  with  all  these 
years  of  diligent  preparation  behind  him,  with  a 
mind  which  is  a  teeming  storehouse  of  accumulated 
material  manipulated  by  faculties  rigorously  trained, 
with  a  body  which  is  a  model  of  symmetry  and 
strength,  with  the  manners  of  a  prince,  genius  in  his 
face  and  honey  on  his  lips,  opens  his  office,  hangs 
out  his  sign,3  puts  up  his  library,  and  cries, 
"Ready  !" 

How  did  he  get  on  ? 

Here  we  must  stop  to  notice  and  refute  a  singular 

misunderstanding.     One  of  his  biographers  and  one 

A)      of  his  eulogists  have  given  wide   currency  to  the 

v/  

1  Letter  of  Judge  Hopkinson,  in  possession  of  the  writer. 

2  Vide  the  Letter  of  Benjamin  F.  Butler  in  Boston  Globe,  February 
4th,  1884. 

3  George  L.  Austin,  in  his  "  Life  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  44. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  55 

statement  that  the  young  lawyer  met  with  no  suc 
cess — that  he  waited  in  that  spick-and-span  office 
"  for  clients  who  did  not  come."  No  proof  is  ad 
duced  of  this  unlikely  assertion,  save,  in  one  case, 
the  hazy  recollection  of  an  aged  friend  of  his  younger 
days.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  the  probabilities 
of  the  case,  which  are  overwhelmingly  contradictory 
of  this  mistake.  With  his  position,  acknowledged 
ability  and  address,  how  could  he  fail  to  capture  a 
practice  ?  But,  better  still,  we  have  the  testimony 
of  Mr.  Phillips  himself.  "  He  often,"  writes  a  lady 
who  was  much  in  his  family,  and  who  knew  him, 
perhaps,  better  than  any  other  person  save  his  wife, 
"  spoke  to  me  of  his  practice  and  the  nature  of  it. 
'  Very  much,'  he  said,  '  was  office  work — drawing  up 
legal  papers,  wills,  etc.'  He  would  sometimes  say, 
with  a  smile,  he  did  better  then  as  a  young  lawyer 
than  most  young  men  do  to-day  upon  entering  the 
profession.  '  Those  two  opening  years  I  paid  all 
my  expenses,  and  few  do  it  now.'  ' 

To  the  same  effect  speaks  Mr.  Sumner,  who  was 
perfectly  familiar  with  the  facts,  and  who  declared, 
not  long  before  his  death,  that  4<  when  Mr.  Phillips 
became  an  Abolitionist  he  withdrew  from  the  roll  of 
Massachusetts  lawyers  the  name  of  the  greatest."  3 

Mr.  A.  H.  Grimke,  too,  a  learned  and  eloquent 
colored  man,  writes  that  Mr.  Phillips  himself  in 
formed  him  that  his  practice  was  extensive  and  suc 
cessful.4 

Nobody  would  be  more  likely  to  possess  informa- 

1  George  William  Curtis,  in  his  "  Eulogy,"  p.  8. 

2  Mrs.    William  Sumner  Crosby,  quoted    in    the  "  Eulogy   of   W, 
Phillips,"  by  Theodore  D.  Weld,  p.  19. 

8  lb.  *  Ib. 


$6  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

tion  on  this  point  than  Mr.  Phillips's  old  friend  and 
coworker,  James  Redpath,  who  compiled  his  vol 
ume  of  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  and  he  says,  in 
the  last  edition  of  that  volume,  in  his  biographical 
notice  :  "A  large  and  increasing  practice  so  occu 
pied  his  time  that  he  forgot  all  else.  In  the  trial  of 
cases  at  the  bar  he  was  training  his  eloquence,  and 
before  juries  he  was  modulating  that  voice  so  soon 
to. thrill  humanity." 

We  may  be  sure,  therefore,  that  it  was  not  because 
he  was  wearied  from  "  waiting  for  clients  who  did 
not  come,"  that  Wendell  Phillips  soon  took  down  his 
sign  and  closed  his  office.  Future  chapters  will  dis 
close  the  reason. 


'  See  the  volume  itself. 


V. 

THE  MARTYR  AGE. 

THE  afternoon  of  October  2ist,  1835,  was  charm 
ing,  the  air  balmy,  with  a  touch  of  tonic  in  it.  Wen 
dell  Phillips  sat  beside  an  open  window  in  his  office 
on  Court  Street  reading.  Suddenly  his  attention 
was  attracted  by  shoutings — angry,  menacing,  pro 
fane — accompanied  by  the  tramp  of  hurrying  feet 
along  the  sidewalk.  The  young  lawyer  rose  and 
leaned  over  the  window-sill.  He  saw  a  crowd  half 
a  block  away  on  Washington  Street.  Evidently 
they  were  acting  under  great  excitement.  What 
was  the  matter  ?  Leaving  the  window  he  put  on  his 
hat  and  sallied  forth.  Presently  he  was  in  the  midst 
of  the  crowd.  He  found  it  a  mob.  They  were  con 
fronting  the  Anti-Slavery  office  at  the  head  of  Wash 
ington  Street,  while  four  or  five  thousand  gesticulat 
ing,  vociferating  men  were  trying  to  push  their  way 
up  the  narrow  stairs  and  into  the  hall,  which  was  up 
two  flights. 

Mr.  Phillips  stood  and  watched.  Now  he  sees  the 
mayor  (Theodore  Lyman)  come  on  the  scene.  He 
hears  him  vainly  beseech  the  people  to  disperse,  in 
stead  of  commanding  them  to  do  so.  In  a  moment 
the  mayor  disappears  ;  he  has  gone  into  the  build 
ing.  Now  some  thirty  women,  pale  but  composed, 
come  down  the  stairs  and  march  in  procession  along 
the  street  and  so  away  amid  the  hoots  and  insults 


58  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

of  the  rabble.  Among  these  brave  ladies  is  one  des 
tined  to  become  Mrs.  Wendell  Phillips,1  though  as 
yet  they  have  not  consciously  met. 

But  look  yonder  !  A  man  bare-headed,  with  a  rope 
about  his  waist,  his  clothing  torn  and  bedraggled, 
but  with  the  erect  head,  calm  face,  and  flashing  eyes 
of  a  martyr  going  to  the  stake,2  is  dragged  toward 
the  City  Hall,3  which  is  just  at  hand.  "  Kill  him  !" 
"  Lynch  him  !"  "  Hang  the  Abolitionist  !"  these  ex 
clamations  are  hurled  at  the  composed  prisoner  as 
though  they  had  been  missiles. 

"  Who  is  that?"  asks  Mr.  Phillips. 
'  That?"  is  the  answer  of  a  bystander.      "  Why, 
that's  Garrison,   the  d — d    Abolitionist.     They   are 
going  ta  hang  him." 

The  young  man  sees  Colonel  John  C.  Park,  the 
commander  of  the  Boston  regiment,  of  which  he  is 
himself  a  member.  Approaching  him,  he  says  : 
"  Colonel,  why  doesn't  the  mayor  call  for  the  guns  ? 
This  is  outrageous  !" 

'  Why,"  retorts  the  officer,  "  don't  you  see  that 
the  regiment  is  in  the  mob  ?"  4 

Profoundly  astonished  he  observes  this  fact,  and 
further  notices  that  the  mob  is  composed  of  "  gentle 
men  of  property  and  standing,"  his  friends  and  asso 
ciates  on  Beacon  Hill  !  5  A  mob  in  broadcloth  ! 
Being  now  shut  out  from  further  observations  of  the 


1  Vide  "  William    Lloyd  Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.    ii.,  p.    12, 
note. 

8  The  remark  of  Charles  Sprague,  the  banker-poet,  quoted  in  z/>., 

p.   22. 

:5  /£..   p.   23. 

4  7l>.,  p.  32.    See  Phillips's  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  213. 
6/^,  P-  33- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  59 

scene  by  the  intervening  multitude,  and,  indeed, 
supposing  that  the  authorities  would  keep  Mr.  Gar 
rison  in  the  City  Hall  until  it  should  be  safe  for  him 
to  venture  to  his  home,  Mr.  Phillips  walked  slowly 
back  to  his  office  in  deep  thought. 

On  the  morrow  he  learned  that  he  had  not  seen 
the  drama  through  ;  that  Mr.  Garrison  had  been 
new-clad  in  borrowed  raiment  in  the  mayor's  room, 
hurried  into  a  hack  and,  at  the  risk  of  his  life,  sent 
off  to  jail  as  a  disturber  of  the  peace,  while  the  mob- 
ocrats  were  permitted  to  saunter  off  without  any  at 
tempt  at  their  arrest  !  1  He  also  discovered  from 
the  newspapers  that  the  occasion  of  the  riot  had  been 
a  meeting  of  the  "  Boston  Female  Anti-Slavery 
Society."  Here,  too,  he  found  that  Mayor  Lyman 
played  an  opera-bouffe  part,  turning  the  ladies  (noble 
women,  graced  with  manifold  accomplishments)  out- 
of-doors  instead  of  the  rioters ;  contributing  to,  not 
resisting,  the  disgrace  of  trampling  upon  the  dearest 
right  of  liberty — free  speech.  Most  surprising  of 
all,  the  press  of  the  city,  with  hardly  an  exception, 
extolled  the  mob  and  gloried  in  the  shame  !  Him 
self  a  member  of  the  bar,  trained  to  feel  that  there 
was  more  force  in  the  writ  of  a  constable  than  in  the 
bayonet  of  a  soldier,  supposing  that  he  lived  under 
the  reign  of  law  rather  than  mob  violence,  he  was 
rudely  awakened  from  these  pleasant  dreams  to  real 
ize  the  fact  that,  in  the  country  of  which  he  was  a 
proud  citizen,  an  unpopular  minority  had  no  rights 
which  the  State  was  bound  to  respect,  that  law  was 
not  worth  the  parchment  on  which  it  was  engrossed 
when  it  stood  in  the  way  of  popular  prejudice.  It 


Phillips's  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  216. 


6O  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 


U 


_was  his  first,  but  by  no  means  his  last  lesson  in  the 
essential  weakness  and  limitation  of  republican  gov- 
rnment. 

And  now,  at  the  moment  when  Wendell  Phillips's 
attention  was  first  practically  drawn  to  the  momen 
tous  issue,  we  pause  to  outline  the  state  of  the  popu 
lar  mind  on  the  question  of  slavery. 

The  patriots  and  sages  who  created  the  United 
States  were,  almost  without  exception,  opposed  to 
slavery.  Many  of  them  were  practical  Abolitionists 
—Washington  and  Patrick  Henry,  for  instance,  freed 
their  slaves.  Nevertheless  they  recognized  slavery 
as  an  existing  institution.  They  believed  it  would 
eventually  die  ;  it  was  already  dead  in  the  North. 
But  meantime  they  protected  it  against  an  uprising 
on  the  part  of  the  slaves  by  the  insurrectionary  guar 
antee  of  the  Constitution.  They  foisted  into  that 
fundamental  document  the  three-fifths  slave  basis  of 
representation,  and  thus  unwittingly  gave  the  task 
masters  a  powerful  political  motive  for  retaining 
slavery.  And  they  agreed  that  the  accursed  slave- 
trade  should  continue  in  full  blast  for  twenty  years 
from  the  date  of  the  adoption  of  the  instrument. 
These  were  three  sops  to  Cerberus.  What  did  they 
matter  ?  Were  not  the  republican  idea,  the  laws  of 
trade,  the  voice  of  religion  against  the  curse  ?  The 
very  doctrine  of  equality,  which  was  the  right  hand 
of  the  Constitution,  would — must — sooner  or  later, 
smite  the  system  into  the  grave.  So  they  reasoned. 
Mistaken  men  !  "  He  needs  a  long  spoon,"  says  the 
proverb,  "  who  sups  with  the  devil."  Referring  to 
this  error,  Mr.  Phillips  said  :  "  God  gives  manhood 
but  one  clew  to  success — equal  and  exact  justice  ; 
that  He  guarantees  shall  be  always  expediency.  De- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  6l 

viate  one  hair's  breadth — plant  only  the  tiniest  seed 
of  concession — you  know  not  how  '  many  and  tall 
branches  of  mischief  shall  grow  therefrom. '  ' 

For  a  time,  however,  all  went  well.  Randolph 
pronounced  slavery  "a  volcano  in  full  operation." 
Abolition  societies  sprang  up  everywhere.  Frank 
lin,  Rush,  and  their  compeers  were  glad  and  proud 
to  act  as  their  presidents.  Slavery  stood  cap  in  hand 
and  begged  leave  to  be.  Its  tone  was  apologetic. 

Presently  the  scene  changed.  In  an  evil  hour 
"  the  devil  hovered  over  Charleston  with  a  hand 
ful  of  cotton-seed  (again  we  quote  Mr.  Phillips). 
Dropped  into  sea-island  soil  and  touched  by  the 
magic  of  Massachusetts  brains  (referring  to  Eli  Whit 
ney's  invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  which  instantly 
made  the  culture  of  cotton  cheap  and  profitable),  it 
poisoned  the  atmosphere.  That  cotton  fibre  was  a 
rod  of  empire  such  as  Caesar  never  wielded.  It  fat 
tened  into  obedience  pulpit  and  rostrum,  court, 
market-place,  and  college,  and  leashed  New  York 
and  Philadelphia  to  its  chair  of  State.  In  1787  slave 
property,  worth,  perhaps,  two  hundred  millions  of 
dollars,  strengthened  by  the  sympathy  of  all  other 
capital,  was  a  mighty  power.  It  was  the  Rothschild 
of  the  State.  The  Constitution, -by  its  three-fifths 
slave  basis,  made  slave-holders  an  order  of  nobles. 
This  was  the  house  of  Hapsburg  joining  hands  with 
the  house  of  Rothschild.  Prejudice  of  race  was  the 
third  strand  of  the  cable,  bitter  and  potent  as  Catho 
lic  ever  bore  Huguenot,  or  Hungary  ever  spit  on 
Moslem.  This  fearful  trinity  won  to  its  side  that 
mysterious  omnipotence  called  Fashion — a  power 


"  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  377. 


62  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

which,  without  concerted  action,  without  thought, 
law,  or  religion  on  its  side,  seems  stronger  than 
them  all.  Such  was  slavery.  In  its  presence  the 
North  knelt  and  whispered.  .  When  slavery  could 
not  bully,  it  bubbled  its  victim."  1 
/In  these  circumstances  the  early  repugnance  to 
ythe  "  peculiar  institution"  began  to  fade  away. 
Those  Abolition  societies  one  by  one  disbanded. 
Business,  quickened  by  the  impulse  which  came 
from  the  gigantic  traffic  in  cotton,  stifled  conscience 
in  order  to  make  money.  Thus  the  great  centres 
of  trade,  from  New  Orleans  to  Boston,  were  bribed 
into  complicity.  Society,  borrowing  its  tone  from 
wealth,  spread  its  screen  over  human  bondage.  Law 
soon  found  or  made  precedents  and  sanctions,  for 
did  not  a  fat  retainer  jingle  in  its  hands  ?  The  pulpit 
opened  the  Bible  and  turned  back  to  the  Book  of 
Genesis  for  a  scriptural  warrant,  in  obedience  to 
the  demand  of  the  slavery-infected  pews.  Ah,  it 
was  not  slavery  that  was  dying,  as  the  fathers 
dreamed,  it  was  anti-slavery  !  The  South,  which 
began  by  being  apologetic,  now  reversed  the  role 
and  arrogantly  commanded,  while  the  North  became 
abject. 

Serfdom  in  Russia  was  dreadful.  Bondage  in 
Brazil  was  wicked — it  was  at  a  good,  salt-sea  dis 
tance.  But  slavery  in  America  was  a  necessity — 
a  commercial,  political,  social,  religious  necessity, 
which  let  any  one  gainsay  at  his  peril  !  Here  it  was 
entirely  proper  to  knock  men  down  under  the  ham 
mer  of  the  auctioneer,  whip  women  to  prostitution, 
and  sell  babies  by  the  pound.  There  was  money  in 


"  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  377. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  63 

it.  Traffic  in  human  flesh  !  Why,  ask  the  minister 
if  Abraham  did  not  own  slaves,  and  if  Paul  did  not 
return  the  fugitive  Onesimus  ? 

Such  was  the  strangely  altered  condition  of  the 
public  mind  when,  in  the  year  1829,  suddenly  uprose 
a  young  man  who  new-voiced  the  testimony  of  the 
fathers  against  slavery,  and  did  it  with  an  emphasis 
all  his  own.  Who  was  he  ?  His  name  was  William 
Lloyd  Garrison.  Born  in  Newburyport,  in  Massa 
chusetts,  in  1805,  ms  earlier  years  were  passed  as  a 
printer's  apprentice.  He  had  a  genius  for  ethics, 
and  soon  began  to  write  for  his  master's  journal, 
the  Newburyport  Herald,  upon  current,  moral,  and 
political  questions,  which  he  did  acceptably.  Grad 
uating  from  this  printing-office,  his  high  school  and 
college,  he  started  a  newspaper  in  his  native  town, 
the  Free  Press,  which  gasped  through  a  few  issues 
and  then  died.  Mr.  Garrison  made  his  way  to  Bos 
ton  and  tried  again,  the  National  Philantliropist  being 
the  title  of  his  venture.  It  was  the  first  journal  ever 
established  as  the  champion  of  total  abstinence. 
Here  he  met  Benjamin  Lundy,  a  middle-aged  Quaker 
and  a  moral  hero,  who,  at  his  own  cost,  was  pub 
lishing  in  Baltimore,  in  slave- holding  Maryland,  a 
small  monthly  called  the  Genius  of  Universal  Eman 
cipation,  then  the  only  distinctively  anti-slavery  peri 
odical  in  America.1  Mr.  Lundy  had  come  to  Bos 
ton  to  solicit  subscribers  and  to  raise  funds  for  the 
prosecution  of  his  unequal  war.  These  two  men 
recognized  in  one  another  a  kindred  spirit,  and  Mr. 
Garrison's  attention  was  now  explicitly  directed  to 
the  question  of  slavery.  Soon  after  the  young  Mas- 


Johnson's  New  Universal  Cyclopaedia,  article  "Lundy." 


64  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

sachusetts  editor  went  to  Bennington,  in  Vermont, 
to  edit  the  village  newspaper  there  (the  Journal  of  the 
Times]  in  support  of  John  Quincy  Adams  for  the 
Presidency.  Now  he  began  to  discuss  slavery  in 
earnest.  Mr.  Lundy  again  joined  him  while  thus 
engaged  and  plead eo.  with  him  to  unite  in  the  publi 
cation  of  the  Baltimore  organ.  This  he  did  in  1829.' 
"""The  partners  did  not  agree  in  their  views.  Mr. 
Lundy  was  a  gradual  emancipationist,  and  favored 
the  colonization  of  the  slaves  just  as  fast  as  they 
should  be  freed.  Mr.  Garrison,  with  intuitive  sa 
gacity,  saw  the  absurdity  and  impossibility  of  this 
scheme  in  his  first  study  of  the  problem,  and  hit  at 
once  by  a  stroke  of  genius  upon  the  only  basis  on 
which  the  moral  war  could  be  waged,  viz.,  imme 
diate  and  unconditional  emancipation.2  He  reasoned 
thus  :  Is  slavery  wrong  anywhere  ?  Then  it  is 
wrong  everywhere.  Is  it  wrong  for  a  day  ?  Then 
it  is  wrong  for  a  year — wrong  to  the  end  of  time. 
Is  the  wrongdoer  bound  to  do  right  anywhere  and 
at  any  time  ?  Then  he  is  bound  to  do  right  every 
where  and  instantly.  So  he  hit  upon  his  talisman 
and  coined  his  war-cry. 

But  how,  with  their  different  views,  could  these 
two  edit  the  same  paper  ?  Mr.  Lundy  proposed 
that  each  of  them  should  sign  his  own  contributions 
and  feel  free  to  publish  his  own  doctrine.  Thus  the 
Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation,  like  Cowper's  ''  Or 
ator  Puff, ' '  had  two  ' '  tones  to  its  voice. ' '  One  was  a 
tone  of  thunder,  while  the  other  was  the  tone  of  a 


1  These  statements  are  summarized  from  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison, ' ' 
by  his  sons,  vol.  i.,  pp.  36-137. 

2  See  Wendell  Phillips's  "  Eulogy  of  Garrison,"  published  by  Lee 
&  Shepard,  Boston. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  65 

zephyr.  What  was  the  result  ?  Mr.  Lundy's  teach 
ings  had  no  result.  Even  Baltimore,  the  centre  of 
the  domestic  slave-trade,  gave  no  heed  to  his  mild 
remonstrances.  It  was  like  bombarding  Gibraltar 
with  cologne  water.  When  Mr.  Garrison  spoke  the 
city  was  stirred  as  by  an  earthquake.  He  was 
speedily  thrown  into  jail.  At  the  end  of  forty-nine 
days  his  fine  and  bill  of  costs  (he  had  been  tried  and 
found  guilty  of  libel  for  denouncing  a  certain  Mr. 
Todd  for  conducting  an  interstate  slave-trade)  were 
paid  by  Arthur  Tappan,1  of  New  York,  an  eminent 
merchant,  then  a  colonizationist,  but  known  soon 
after  as  among  the  most  active  of  Abolitionists  ;  and 
the  victim  of  free  speech  was  set  at  liberty. 

This  experience  taught  Mr.  Garrison  that  he  had 
selected  the  wrong  scene  for  his  crusade  ;  that  a 
preliminary  work  needed  to  be  done  before  slavery 
could  be  successfully  assailed  ;  that  the  right  to  dis- ./ 
cuss  the  question  must  be  first  established.  Free 
speech  was  now  deemed  treason  by  the  State  and 
condemned  as  heresy  by  the  Church.  Where  should 
this  central  truth  of  liberty  be  vindicated  ?  Mani 
festly  not  in  the  midst  of  coffle-gangs  and  slave-pens, 
where  his  voice  would  be  drowned  by  the  rattle  of 
shackles  and  the  machinery  of  oppression  in  thunder 
ous  operation.  Hence,  dissolving  his  partnership 
with  Mr.  Lundy,  he  set  out  upon  a  prospecting  tour. 
In  giving  his  experience,  he  wrote  : 

"  Every  place  that  I  visited  gave  fresh  evidence 
of  the  fact  that  a  greater  revolution  in  public  senti 
ment  was  to  be  effected  in  the  free  States  (and  partic 
ularly  in  New  England)  than  at  the  South.  I  found 


"  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"   by  his  sons,  vol.  i.,  p.  190. 


66  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

contempt  more  bitter,  opposition  more  active,  de 
traction  more  relentless,  prejudices  more  stubborn, 
and  apathy  more  frozen  than  among  slave-holders 
themselves.  Of  course  there  were  individual  ex 
ceptions  to  the  contrary.  This  state  of  things  af 
flicted,  but  did  not  dishearten  me.  I  determined,  at 
every  hazard,  to  lift  up  the  standard  of  emancipation 
in  the  eyes  of  the  nation,  within  sight  of  Bunker  Hill, 
and  in  the  birthplace  of  liberty."  l 

Accordingly  he  returned  to  Boston  and  established 
the  Liberator?  This  was  in  1831.  Supposing  that 
he  would  have  a  certain  ally  in  the  churches  if  he 
could  but  win  them  to  consider  the  question  of 
slavery,  Mr.  Garrison  became  an  itinerant  mission 
ary  and  waited  upon  clergyman  after  clergyman. 
Being  of  the  orthodox  faith  in  those  days,  he  began 
with  the  Rev.  Dr  Lyman  Beecher. 

"  No,"  said  the  divine,  with  a  shake  of  the  head  ; 
"  I  have  too  many  irons  in  the  fire  already. " 

'  Then,"  was  the  solemn  reply,  "  you  had  better 
take  all  the  rest  out  and  put  this  in." 

The  truth  is,  that  Dr.  Beecher  was  a  colonization- 
ist.  He  preached  immediate  repentance  to  sinners, 
with  a  caveat  in  the  case  of  slavery.  Of  all  sug 
gested  remedies  for  slavery  colonization  was  the 
most  preposterous.  All  the  shipping  of  the  world 
would  not  have  sufficed  to  ferry  the  slaves  back  to 
Africa.  And  had  that  been  possible,  what  hope  was 
there  that  the  masters  would  consent,  or  if  they  did, 
that  the  slaves  would  go  ?  The  conviction  is  irre- 


"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  O.  Johnson,  pp.  41,  42. 

2  lb.,  p.   50.     "  William  Lloyd    Garrison,"    by    his   sons,  vol.    i., 
p.  219. 

3  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  44. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  67 

sistible  that  many  consciences,  pinched  by  a  sense 
of  the  sin  of  slavery,  but  unwilling  to  accept  the 
only  honest  and  adequate  remedy,  salved  their  aching 
with  this  fantasy.  As  regards  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher, 
he  did  make  vicarious  atonement  by  the  gift  to  Anti- 
Slavery,  later  on,  of  his  son,  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
whose  tongue  became  like  the  stone  in  David's  sling 
to  smite  the  Goliath-evil  ;  and  of  his  daughter,  Har 
riet  Beecher  Stowe,  whose  pen  impaled  it.  The  old 
man's  loins  were  wiser  than  his  head  ! 

From  Dr.  Beecher,  Mr.  Garrison  went  to  the 
Rev.  Dr.  William  Ellery  Channing,  the  chief  of  the 
Unitarians,  with  no  greater  success.  Dr.  Channing 
sympathized,  but  would  not  act.  Then  he  visited 
Jeremiah  Evarts,  the  famous  Secretary  of  the 
4<  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign 
Missions,"  and  an  able  champion  of  the  Indians. 
But  he  considered  that  there  was  a  great  difference 
between  red  and  black.  He  admired  the  one  color 
and  disliked  the  other.  Besides,  many  of  the  Cher- 
okees  and  Choctaws  were  themselves  slave-holders  ! ' 

Surprised  but  not  dismayed,  the  editor  of  the 
Liberator  continued  his  Diogenes-quest  for  an  honest 
man.  He  flashed  his  lantern  through  the  thick  dark 
ness  of  Boston,  of  Massachusetts,  of  New  England 
— vainly  !  Or  if  he  met  with  any  success,  the  excep 
tions  were  so  few  and  so  obscure  that  they  only 
established  the  rule  of  indifference  that  deepened 
into  vicious  hostility.  The  clergy  were  against 
slavery  in  the  abstract,  but  were  clear  that  it  ought 
not  to  be  interfered  with  at  the  South.  Abraham 
and  Onesimus  were  constantly  flung  into  the  young 


1  "Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  O.  Johnson,  pp.  45,  46. 


68  WEND7CLL   THILLIPS. 

Abolitionist's  face.  This  chapter  in  the  history  of 
American  Christianity  is  fitted  to  wring  tears  from 
the  eyes  of  angels.  It  was  the  age  of  the  reign  of 
Satan  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Behold  an  inherent 
defect  in  the  voluntary  system,  which  puts  the  pulpit 
at  the  mercy  of  the  pews,  and  makes  it  martyrdom 
for  the  minister  to  preach  what  the  parish  disallows. 

Mr.  Garrison  next  tried  the  Quakers,  moved  to  it, 
perhaps,  by  his  old  relations  with  Mr.  Lundy.  They 
had  been  the  immemorial  friends  of  the  oppressed, 
for  had  not  the  iron  entered  their  own  souls  ?  But 
now  they  were  become  rich  and  respectable.  They 
were  the  sharpest  of  traders,  and  their  greed  choked 
their  consciences.  Their  ears  were  stuffed  with  cot 
ton  so  that  they  could  not  hear  the  sighs  of  the 
bondmen. 

There  was  a  time,  as  some  one  has  said,  when  one 
Quaker  was  enough  to  shake  the  country  for  twenty 
miles  around  ;  but  now  it  required  the  country  for 
twenty  miles  around  to  shake  one  Quaker  !  1  There 
were  some  bright  exceptions  among  them,  as  among 
the  other  sects.  John  G.  Whittier  was  one.  He 
had  already  attuned  his  harp  for  freedom,  and  begun 
to  sing  a  race  into  liberty  and  himself  into  immor 
tality.  Arnold  Buffum,  of  Lynn,  in  Massachusetts, 
was  another,  and  he  became  the  first  President  of  the 
first  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  America  that  was  es 
tablished  on  the  principle  of  immediate  emancipa 
tion.3  There  were  others  less  well  known. 

"  Well,  Perez,  I  hope  thee's  done  running  after 
the  Abolitionists,"  said  a  high-seat  friend  to  one  of 


"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  Oliver  Johnson,  p.  21. 
2  /*.,  p.  94. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  69 

his  humbler  brethren.  '  Verily,  I  have,"  returned 
Perez  ;  "I've  caught  up  with  and  gone  just  a  little 
ahead  of  'em  !"  * 

Meantime  the  Liberator  continued  to  appear,  and 
was  supported  as  miraculously  as  was  Elijah  in  the 
famine.  How  the  money  came  or  was  to  come  God 
only  knew.  The  heroic  editor  lived  for  many 
months  on  faith,  and  such  material  provender  as  he 
could  procure  from  a  neighboring  bakery.2  The 
office  was  in  a  garret.  '  Everything  about  it,"  re 
marks  Oliver  Johnson,  an  eye-witness  of  and  partici 
pator  in  the  experience,  "  had  an  aspect  of  slovenly 
decay,  and  Harrison  Gray  Otis  well  characterized  it 
as  '  an  obscure  hole  — 

'  Yet  there  the  freedom  of  a  race  began.' 

The  dingy  walls  ;  the  small  windows  bespattered 
with  printers'  ink  ;  the  press  standing  in  one  corner, 
the  composing  stands  opposite  ;  the  long  editorial 
and  mailing  table,  covered  with  newspapers  ;  the 
bed  of  the  editor  and  publisher  on  the  floor  —  all 
these  make  a  picture  never  to  be  forgotten."  3 

The  publication  of  the  sheet  which  issued  from 
these  sorry  quarters  made  a  sensation.  Each  week 
its  appearance  was  an  event.  Boston  at  the  outset 
shook  with  laughter.  It  was  a  new  edition  of  "  Don 
Quixote."  The  South  recognized  the  danger  at 
once.  This  voice  was  like  its  own  —  resolute,  com 
manding  —  the  only  voice  its  instinct  made  it  fear. 
Here  were  conviction,  indomitable  will  and  courage 
never  to  submit  nor  yield. 


"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  Oliver  Johnson,  p.  97. 
2  /<$.,  p.  51.  3  /^  pp< 


/O  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

In  condemning  slavery  as  a  sin  ;  in  demanding 
that  it  be  repented  of  and  forsaken  immediately  and 
unconditionally  because  sinful  ;  in  asserting  the 
humanity  of  the  negro  and  his  consequent  fitness  for 
freedom  (a  fact  which  the  whole  country  discred 
ited,  holding  that  a  "  nigger"  was  nothing  but  a 
type  of  cattle — an  impious  notion  which  slavery  had 
spawned)  ;  in  speaking  right  out  on  these  points, 
with  the  directness  and  emphasis  of  Nathan  when 
he  said  to  the  royal  transgressor,  "Thou  art  the 
man  !"  Mr.  Garrison  made  the  Liberator  a  spear  of 
Ithuriel,  whose  touch  transformed  slave-holders  into 
man-stealers  and  forced  the  disguised  devil  to  dis 
close  himself.1 

One  by  one  friends  sought  out  the  editor.  By 
and  by  there  were  enough  of  these  to  permit  the 
organization  of  a  "  New  England  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety."  Early  in  1832  the  association  was  formed, 
twelve  apostles  signing  the  constitution.2  The  meet 
ing  Avas  held  in  the  school-room  of  the  African  Bap- 


1  "  Him  .  .   .  they  found 
Squat,  like  a  toad,  close  at  the  ear  of  Eve, 
Assaying  by  his  devilish  art  to  reach 
The  organs  of  her  fancy,  and  with  them  forge 
Illusions  as  he  list,  phantasms  and  dreams  ; 
Him  thus  intent,  Ithuriel  with  his  spear 
Touched  lightly,  for  no  falsehood  can  endure 
Touch  of  celestial  temper,  but  returns 
Of  force,  to  its  own  likeness  :  up  he  starts, 
Discovered  and  surprised." 

— Paradise  Lost%  B.  iv. 

a  Here  are  their  names  :  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Oliver  Johnson, 
Robert  B.  Hall,  Arnold  Buffum,  William  J.  Snelling,  John  E.  Fuller, 
Moses  Thatcher,  Joshua  Coffin,  Stillman  B.  Newcomb,  Benjamin  C. 
Bacon,  Isaac  Knapp,  and  Henry  R.  Stockton.  Vide  "  Garrison  and 
his  Times,"  by  O.  Johnson,  p.  86. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  /I 

tist  Church  in  Belknap  Street,  Boston,  thereafter  a 
frequent  refuge  of  the  Abolitionists  in  storm  and 
tempest.  As  the  meeting-  adjourned,  and  the  twelve 
gentlemen  stepped  out  into  the  dark  night  (it  was 
snowing),  Mr.  Garrison  remarked,  impressively  : 
44  We  have  met  this  evening  in  this  obscure  school- 
house  ;  our  numbers  are  few  and  our  influence  lim 
ited  ;  but  mark  my  prediction,  Faneuil  Hall  shall 
erelong  echo  with  the  principles  we  have  set  forth. 
We  shall  shake  the  nation  with  their  mighty  power.  V  1 
Surely  he  wore  on  that  occasion  the  mantle  of  the 
old  Hebrew  prophet  ! 

Toward  the  end  of  1833  a  great  convention  was 
held  in  Philadelphia,  and  the  "  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society"  was  organized,2  an  achievement 
which  unified  the  scattered  forces  of  Abolition  and 
challenged  the  attention  of  the  nation.  The  example 
proved  contagious.  A  number  of  State  societies, 
and  in  some  cases  county  and  city  societies,  were 
formed  soon  after.  The  agitation  became  intense. 
Mr.  Garrison  could  not  hold  forth  any  worldly  con 
siderations  to  attract  adherents.  His  case  was  like 
that  of  Garibaldi,  who,  desiring  to  liberate  and 
unify  Italy,  went  before  a  crowd  of  young  men  and 
appealed  for  recruits. 

4  What  are  your  inducements  ?"  they  asked. 

"  Poverty,  hardship,  battles,  wounds,  and — vic 
tory /"  replied  the  hero.  The  Italians  caught  his 
enthusiasm  and  enlisted  on  the  spot.  In  the  same 
way  did  the  Boston  Abolitionist  make  headway. 

The  alarmed  South  was  loud-mouthed  and  threat- 


1  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  O.  Johnson,  p.  88. 

2  "  William    Lloyd   Garrison,"  by  his  sons,    vol.    ii.,    chap,    xii., 

passim. 


72  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ening.  The  North,  as  usual,  cringed  and  asked  for 
orders.  As  an  indication  of  the  spirit  of  the  slave 
oligarchy  read  this  paragraph,  clipped  from  the 
Richmond  Whig: 

11  Let  the  hell-hounds  at  the  North  beware.  Let  them  not  feel 
too  much  security  in  their  homes,  or  imagine  that  they  who 
throw  firebrands,  although  from,  as  they  think,  so  safe  a  dis 
tance,  will  be  permitted  to  escape  with  impunity.  There  are 
thousands  now  animated  with  a  spirit  to  brave  every  danger  to 
bring  those  felons  to  justice  on  the  soil  of  the  Southern  States, 
whose  women  and  children  they  have  dared  to  endanger  by  their 
hell-concocted  plots.  We  have  feared  that  Southern  exaspera 
tion  would  seize  some  of  the  prime  conspirators  in  their  very 
beds,  and  drag  them  to  meet  the  punishment  due  their  offences. 
We  fear  it  no  longer.  We  hope  it  may  be  so,  and  our  applause 
as  one  man  shall  follow  the  successful  enterprise." 

Here  is  another  extract,  taken  from  the  Columbia 
Telescope,  a  prominent  and  influential  journal  in  South 
Carolina  : 

"  Let  us  declare,  through  the  public  journals  of  our  country, 
that  the  question  of  slavery  is  not  and  shall  not  be  open  to  dis 
cussion  ;  that  the  very  moment  any  private  individual  attempts 
to  lecture  us  upon  its  evils  and  immorality,  in  the  same  moment 
his  tongue  shall  be  cut  out  and  cast  upon  the  dunghill." 

Taking  their  cue  from  such  utterances  as  these 
(and  these  were  only  two  solos  in  a  diabolical 
chorus),  Governor  McDuffie,  in  a  message  to  the 
Legislature  of  South  Carolina,  declared  slavery  ' '  the 
corner-stone  of  the  Republican  edifice  ;"  asserted 
that  the  laboring  class  of  any  community,  "  bleached 
or  unbleached,"  was  a  "dangerous  element  in  the 
body  politic  ;"  predicted  that  within  twenty-five 
years  the  white  laboring  people  of  the  North  would 
be  virtually  reduced  to  slavery,  and  ended  by  de 
manding  that  the  laws  should  be  so  amended  every- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  73 

where  as  to  punish  any  interference  with  or  discus 
sion  of  Southern  institutions  "  with  death  without 
benefit  of  clergy." 

The  Legislature  of  the  State,  responding  to  this 
message,  promptly  resolved,  "  That  South  Carolina, 
having  every  confidence  in  the  justice  and  friendship 
of  the  non-slave-holding  States,  announces  her  con 
fident  expectation,  and  she  earnestly  requests  that 
the  governments  of  these  States  will  promptly  and 
effectually  suppress  all  those  associations  within 
their  respective  limits  purporting  to  be  Abolition 
societies."  2 

North  Carolina,  Alabama,  and  Virginia  adopted 
similar  resolutions.  And  these  were  forwarded  to 
the  Northern  Governors.3  How  did  they  receive 
such  insolent  demands  ?  Precisely  as  the  black 
slaves  at  the  South  received  the  whip.  Most  of 
them  forwarded  the  communications  to  their  respec 
tive  legislatures  with  no  comment  at  all.  Two  of 
them,  however,  viz.,  Governor  W.  L.  Marcy,  of 
New  York,  and  Governor  Edward  Everett,  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  outran  the  rest  in  the  race  of  servility, 
echoed  the  demands  of  Governor  McDuffie,  of 
South  Carolina,  and  recommended  the  legislatures 
of  their  respective  States  to  make  it  a  penal  offence 
to  speak  or  print  against  slavery.4  Happily,  the 
legislatures  of  New  York  and  Massachusetts  had 
more  self-respect  than  their  lackey-governors.  The 
suggested  legislation  was  attempted,  but  thanks  to 
the  efforts  of  the  Abolitionists  it  did  not  carry.6 


1  Vide  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  O.  Johnson,  pp.  213,  214. 

2  Ib.,  p.  214.  3  Ib. 
4  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  75,  76. 

6  Ib.t  p.  76.  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  O.  Johnson,  pp.  214-17, 


74  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

With  such  a  domineering  spirit  at  the  South  and 
with  such  servility  in  high  places  at  the  North,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  the  sidewalks  were  unsafe  for 
Abolitionists  to  tread  ;  that  public  halls  were  denied 
to  them  for  their  meetings  ;  that  their  publications 
were  excluded  from  the  mails  ;  that  it  became  in 
creasingly  difficult  for  them  to  earn  a  livelihood  in 
any  line  of  trade  ;  that  they  were  marked  men,  under 
the  frown  of  State  and  Church,  moral  pariahs,  invit 
ing  abuse  and  regarded  as  fit  for  death.1  To  be  an 
Abolitionist  in  free  America  was  in  popular  estima 
tion,  fifty  years  ago,  what  it  was  to  be  a  Christian  in 
the  days  of  Nero,  or  what  it  is  to  be  a  Nihilist  in 
Russia  now.  The  very  word  embodied  contempt 
and  rage  beyond  expression.  Anybody,  everybody, 
felt  free  to  kick  and  cuff,  to  damn  and  hang  an 
Abolitionist. 

Theodore  D.  Weld,2  who  was  an  active  partici 
pant  in  the  scenes  he  describes,  and  who  is  remem 
bered  as  a  Demosthenes  of  eloquence  by  the  few 
survivors  of  that  period,  paints,  as  only  he  could, 
the  treatment  which  he  and  others  like  him  then 
received  : 


1  See  T.  D.  Weld's  "  Eulogy  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  pp.  21-25. 

2  Mr.   Weld  was  born  in  Massachusetts  in   1803.     He  studied  at 
Andover,   and  followed  Dr.   Lyman   Beecher  to  Lane  Seminary,  in 
Ohio,  when  that  divine  took  charge  of  the  institution.     Here  he  be 
came  interested  in  the  slavery  question,  abolitionized  the  seminary, 
took   the  field  as  an    And- Slavery   lecturer,    and    by  his    amazing 
eloquence    speedily    made    his    name   and    fame   continental.      Un 
happily  his  excessive  labors  and  exposures  caused  the  loss  of  his  voice 
and  did  what  slavery  could  not  do— silenced  him.     He  is  still  living 
(1890),   hale  and  hearty  in  a  serene  and  honored  old  age,  at  Hyde 
Park,  near  Boston. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  75 

"  Civilization  presupposes  a  government  of  law. 
If  law  is  abolished  society  sinks  into  barbarism. 
Sunk  thus  was  this  nation  then  in  its  relation  to 
Abolitionists.  Mobs  had  been  for  years  everywhere 
in  outburst  against  them.  They  were  the  victims 
of  an  indiscriminate  ostracism.  Everywhere  they 
were  doomed  because  they  hated  slavery  and  lived 
out  that  hate.  In  thousands  of  cases  they  were  sub 
jected  to  personal  assaults,  beatings,  and  buffetings, 
with  nameless  indignities.  They  were  stoned, 
clubbed,  knocked  down,  and  pelted  with  missiles, 
often  with  eggs,  and,  when  they  could  be  gotten, 
spoiled  ones.  They  were  smeared  with  filth,  stripped 
of  clothing,  tarred,  feathered,  ridden  upon  rails, 
their  houses  sacked,  bonfires  made  in  the  streets  of 
their  furniture,  garments,  and  bedding,  their  vehicles 
and  harnesses  were  cut  and  broken,  and  their  do 
mestic  animals  harried,  dashed  with  hot  water, 
cropped,  crippled,  and  killed.  Among  these  out 
rages,  besides  assaults  and  breaches  of  the  peace, 
there  were  sometimes  burglaries,  robberies,  maim- 
ings,  and  arsons  ;  Abolitionists  were  driven  from 
their  homes  into  the  fields  and  the  woods  and  their 
houses  burned.  They  were  dragged  and  thrust 
from  the  halls  in  which  they  held  their  meetings. 
They  were  often  shot,  at  and  sometimes  wounded. 
In  one  mob  a  number  were  thus  wounded  and 
one  killed.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  our  civiliza 
tion  was  sunk  to  barbarism.  The  law,  which  to 
others  was  protection,  to  Abolitionists  was  sheerest 
mockery.  Yea,  more,  it  singled  them  out  as  its  vic 
tims.  Professing  to  protect,  it  gave  them  up  to  rav 
age  and  beckoned  the  spoilers  to  their  prey.  Of  the 
tens  of  thousands  who  perpetrated  such  atrocities 


/O  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

not  one  suffered  the  least  legal  penalty  for  those 
astounding  violations  of  law  !"  1 

While  such  was  the  reception  of  the  Abolitionists 
here  at  the  North  and  in  their  own  homes,  and  when 
it  was  proposed  to  padlock  their  lips  by  law,  slave 
holders  might  come  into  the  free  States  with  a  ret 
inue  of  slaves  as  long  as  the  triumphal  procession 
of  an  old  Roman  emperor,  and  with  a  harem  that  sug 
gested  the  Turkish  Sultan,  with  none  to  molest  them 
or  make  them  afraid.  And  from  the  centre  of  the 
indecent  cortege  the)  denounced  the  Abolitionists 
as  cut-throats.  It  was  an  outrage  to  attack  slavery, 
but  entirely  correct  to  practice  and  defend  it  !  Op 
position  was  sin  and  defence  was  virtue  ! 

Mr.  Garrison,  as  the  central  figure  in  the  accursed 
circle,  was  naturally  the  special  target  for  conspira 
tors  to  aim  at.  Already  a  price  had  been  set  upon 
his  head  by  the  State  of  Georgia  of  $5000, 2  a  stand 
ing  bribe  to  any  gang  of  ruffians  to  kidnap  him  and 
deliver  the  Samson  of  Abolition  into  the  hands  of 
the  modern  Philistines.  That  he  was  not  seized  on 
some  dark  night,  hurried  to  the  wharf  near  his  office, 
and  sent  on  some  South-bound  vessel  to  grind  in  the 
prison-house  of  the  oppressors  or  make  sport  in  the 
Temple  of  Dagon,  is  a  miracle — further  proof  of  the 
existence  and  Providence  of  God. 

Such  is  a  crayon  sketch  of  the  public  situation  at 
the  hour  when  the  broadcloth  mob  fell  under  the 
eyes  of  Wendell  Phillips  in  1835 — the  South  omnip 
otent  and  imperious,  the  North  its  errand-boy  and 
lick-spittle  ;  the  Abolitionists  few  in  number,  unin- 

1  "  Eulogy  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  pp.  22,  23. 

2  See  the  legislative  action  of  Georgia,  quoted  in  "William  Lloyd 
Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  i.,  pp.  247-49. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  77 

^*m 

fluential  in  position,  despised  as  fanatics  and  hated 
as  incendiaries,  banned  by  the  slave-masters  and 
mobbed  at  home,  outcasts  for  their  humanity,  as  the 
negroes  were  on  account  of  their  skin.  America 
was  a  synonym  for  helL 


VI. 

THE   NEW  CLIENT. 

THE  intimacy  of  Wendell  Phillips  and  Charles 
Sumner,  as  we  have  noted,  commenced  at  the  Boston 
Latin  School,  continued  at  college  and  in  the  Law 
School,  and  deepened  with  the  lapse  of  time.  They 
were  often  together.  One  day  (it  was  early  in  1836) 
they  sat  conversing  in  Mr.  Phillips's  office  on  Court 
Street,  when  a  mutual  friend,  a  Mr.  Alford,  burst  in 
upon  them.  He  informed  them  of  his  engagement 
to  a  Miss  Grew,  of  Greenfield,  in  Massachusetts. 
Said  he  : 

'  I  am  going  to  Greenfield  with  my  fiancee  to 
morrow,  and  a  cousin  of  hers,  a  Miss  Ann  Terry 
Greene,  is  to  accompany  us.  Now  you  know  that 
in  my  condition  '  two's  company/  etc.,  and  I  wish 
you  would  go,  both  of  you,  and  take  care  of  the 
other  lady.  She  will  require  the  two  of  you,  for 
she  is  the  aurora  borealis  in  human  form — the  clever 
est,  loveliest  girl  you  ever  met.  But  I  warn  you 
that  she  is  a  rabid  Abolitionist.  Look  out  or  she 
will  talk  you  both  into  that  ism  before  you  suspect 
what  she  is  at." 

After  chaffing  Alford,  the  two  friends  agreed  to 
go. 

'  It  is  only  fair/'  remarked  Mr.  Sumner,  "  to  help 
him  out.  Do  as  you'd  be  done  by,  eh,  Wendell  ?" 

The  next  morning  was  furiously  stormy.      When 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  79 

Mr.  Sumner  got  up  and  looked  out  he  muttered,  "  I 
won't  go  on  a  stage  ride  (no  railroads  then)  on  such 
a  day  for  any  woman  !"  and  ungallantly  went  back 
to  bed. 

Mr.  Phillips  was  more  chivalrous — he  went. 
While  his  friend  devoted  himself  to  Miss  Grew  he 
made  himself  the  cavalier  of  Miss  Greene,  who,  true 
to  the  warning  he  had  received,  talked  Abolition  to 
him  to  the  accompaniment  of  the  rattling  stage 
coach.  What  of  that  ?  Who  cares  what  a  charming 
girl  talks  about,  so  that  she  only  talks?  Besides, 
Mr.  Phillips  was  already  deeply  interested  in  the 
question  of  slavery.  His  Anti-Slavery  convictions 
dated  back  to  i83i/  the  year  of  his  graduation. 
True,  he  held  them  in  an  inactive,  theoretical  fash 
ion.  But  they  were  there,  and  they  had  been 
warmed  into  new  life  by  the  Garrison  mob.  The 
burning  words  of  this  fair  enthusiast  added  fresh  fuel 
to  the  slumbering  fire.  When  Jean  d' Arc  sounds  to 
battle  where  is  the  soldier  who  can  refuse  to  buckle 
on  his  armor  ?  All  too  soon  did  that  stage-coach 
lumber  into  Greenfield  ! 

Before  they  parted  Mr.  Phillips  asked  and  obtained 
permission  to  continue  the  acquaintance.  Miss 
Greene  was  a  native,  and  resident'  of  Boston.  Her 
admirer  learned  that  she  was  an  orphan  and  an  heir 
ess,2  though  for  the  heiress  part  of  it  he  cared  noth 
ing,  for  he  was  himself  a  man  of  independent  for 
tune,  and  one  who  would  not  have  been  swayed 
by  mercenar}^  considerations.  Her  home  was  not 
far  from  his  own,  with  her  uncle  and  aunt,  Mr.  and 


1  Weld's  "  Eulogy  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  20. 

2  Her  father  was  Benjamin  Greene,  a  wealthy  trader  of  Boston. 


80  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

x 

Mrs.  Henry  G.  Chapman,1  who  were  warm  friends 
and  devoted  adherents  of  Mr.  Garrison.2  The  lady 
was  beautiful,  splendidly  educated,  a  marvellous 
conversationalist,  and  possessed  a  rare  moral  nature. 
She  had  withal  a  singular  power  of  insight,  and  after 
the  manner  of  her  sex,  could  get  to  the  bottom  of  a 
subject  by  a  flash  of  intuition,  and  so  reach  a  con 
clusion  which  the  male  intellect  might  attain  only 
by  laborious  reasoning.  "  Yes,"  confessed  Mr. 
Phillips,  in  after  years,  "  my  wife  made  an  out  and 
out  Abolitionist  of  me,  and  she  always  preceded  me 
in  the  adoption  of  the  various  causes  I  have  advo 
cated." 

No  wonder  the  young  man  found  the  personal 
charms  of  such  a  woman,  inspired  and  aglow  with 
lofty  moral  purpose,  irresistible  !  He  came  to  see 
her.  came  again,  and  then  kept  coming.  Within  the 
year  when  they  first  met  their  engagement  was  an 
nounced.3 

•  It  was  at  the  Chapman's  fireside  that  Wendell 
Phillips  was  introduced  to  Mr.  Garrison4— his  final 
step  toward  Abolition.  These  two  men,  so  unlike 
in  family,  training,  worldly  prospects,  so  at  one  in 
conviction,  courage,  devotion,  were  from  the  start 
attracted  to  each  other.  And  thus  began  that  won 
drous  alliance  which  was  to  find  its  consummation 
and  benediction  in  the  rehabilitation  of  American 
^liberty. 

Yet  it  was  a  strange  coalition.  For  Mr.  Garrison 
was  a  plebeian,  while  Mr.  Phillips  was  an  aristo- 


1  "  Ann  Phillips,"  a  Memorial  Sketch,  by  Mrs.  Alford,  p.  3. 

2  Ib.  3  Ib. 
4  So  Mr.  Phillips  told  the  writer. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  8l 

crat.  The  one  was  a  self-made  man  ;  the  other  was 
the  consummate  product  of  New  England  culture. 
The  first  had  no  grace,  save  the  highest,  that  of 
God  ;  the  second  had  that  highest,  and  added  to  it 
every  other  grace  of  mind  and  person  that  can  adorn 
a  man.  The  genius  of  the  printer  was  the  home 
spun  genius  of  intense  moral  conviction,  that  treads 
every  obstacle  under  foot  ;  the  genius  of  the  lawyer 
>was  the  genius  of  Plato  in  the  Academy  and  Burke 
in  the  Senate,  with  contagious  morality  enough 
thrown  in  to  infect  the  continent.  One  of  these  two 
allies  was  to  become  the  executive  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
movement  ;  the  other  was  to  supply  the  eloquence 
that  should  melt  the  fetters  from  a  race  and  trans- 
fbrm  a  nation. 

That  meeting  with  Ann  Terry  Greene  was  a  happy 
circumstance.  As  results  of  it  the  lady  secured  an 
ideal  husband  and  won  to  a  great  reform  its  most 
powerful  advocate.  Mr.  Phillips  obtained  a  wife 
who  became  his  perennial  inspiration.  Mr.  Garri 
son  gained  his  most  renowned  ally,  and  the  blacks 
may  date  from  it  the  auspicious  beginning  of  a 
triumphant  end. 

Not  long  after  meeting  Mr.  Garrison ,  Wendell 
Phillips  openly  announced  his  adoption  of  Abolition 
principles  and  took  his  place  among  the  "  fanatics." 
The  Rubicon  was  passed  !  The  boats,  were  burned  ! 
On  June  I4th,  1837,  he  rode  out  to  Lynn,  ten  miles 
away,  for  the  first  time  to  attend  an  Anti-Slavery 
Convention.1  It  was  the  quarterly  meeting  of  the 
Massachusetts  Society.  His  maiden  speech  in  the 
hated  cause  made  that  session  forever  memorable, 


1  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  ii.,  p.  129. 


82  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

After  reading  a  resolution  which  pledged  the  assem 
blage  to  "  special  consecration,"  he  proceeded  to 
enforce  it  in  an  address  which  "  charmed  and  sur 
prised  the  audience,"  Naturally,  his  classic  style 
and  exquisite  modulation  could  not  fail  to  surprise 
and  charm.  One  passage  is  prophetic  in  its  aspira 
tion,  and  is  characteristic,  too,  in  its  generous  tribute 
to  Mr.  Garrison  : 

"  We  would  have  ourselves  the  joy  of  seeing  this  work  accom 
plished.  Before  our  eyes  are  closed,  we  wish  to  see  the  happy 
day  which  shall  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captive.  If  it  be  possi 
ble,  let  the  shout  of  emancipated  millions  rise  before  his  ear  i? 
dust  whose  voice  first  waked  the  trumpet-note  which  is  rocking 
the  nation  from  side  to  side.  To  him  (need  I  name  him  ?)  with, 
at  least  equal  truth  may  be  applied  the  language  of  Burke  to 
Fox  :  '  It  will  be  a  distinction  honorable  to  the  age,  that  the 
rescue  of  the  greatest  number  of  the  human  race  from  the  great 
est  tyranny  that  was  ever  exercised,  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  one 
with  abilities  and  dispositions  equal  to  the  task  ;  that  it  has 
fallen  to  the  lot  of  one  who  has  the  enlargement  to  comprehend, 
the  spirit  to  undertake,  and  the  eloquence  to  support  so  £reat  a 
measure  of  hazardous  benevolence.'  "  2 

With  this  speech  Mr.  Phillips  began  his  career  as 
a  reformer.  He  had -gained  a  new  client.  He  "be 
came  attorney  for  the  people  in  the  Court  of  Con 
science.  Like  the  matchless  sculpture  of  St.  Martin 
sharing  his  cloak  with  a  beggar,  so  he  threw  over 
the  form  of  shivering  humanity  the  warm  protection 
of  his  gifts  and  advocacy. 

When  it  became  knowiS1  'in  Boston  that  the  most 
talented  of  her  young  s6ris  had  become  an  Abolition 
ist,  the  town  was  horrified.  His  family,  in  all  its 
branches,  was  torn  between  pity  for  their  misguided 

1  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  ii.,  p.  129. 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  vii.,  p.  63. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  83 

/kinsman  and  a  bitter  sense  of  their  own  disgrace. 
His  former  classmates  were  for  a  space  incredulous 
and  then  aghast.  Beacon  Hill  rent  its  clothes  and 
put  ashes  on  its  head.  Everybody  said  :  '  It  is 
suicide — political,  professional,  and  social  suicide." 
So  it  was.  Boston  was  neither  as  large  nor  as  dem 
ocratic  then  as  it  is  now.  The  blue-blood  feeling 
was  marked  and  strong.  It  was  as  fatal  to  break 
caste  in  Boston  fifty  years  ago  as  it  would  have  been 
in  India.  Those  old  families  were  republicans  in 
profession  and  aristocrats  in  practice.  They  prided 
themselves  as  much  upon  their  descent  as  did  the 
English  nobility.  And  they  resented  as  keenly  any 
departure  from  conventional  respectability  as  could 
the  descendants  of  the  Normans.  It  is  at  once 
laughable  and  pathetic  to  reflect  that  there  was  ever 
a  time  in  republican  and  Christian  America  when 
a  practical  belief  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  regarded  as  dis 
reputable,  proof  that  one  was  either  a  knave  or  a  fool  ! 
Wendell  Phillips  soon  found  that  it  was  so.  The  circle 
in  which  he  moved  cut  him  dead.  Old  acquaintances 
grew  strangely  near-sighted  when  they  met  him  on 
the  street.  Doors  which  before  had  opened  to  give 
him  eager  welcome  were  shut  in  his  face.  The  class 
from  which  his  professional  advancement  was  to 

"come  withdrew  their  business  from  his  hands.  He 
saw  all  his  bright  prospects  crumbling  to  the  ground 
under  his  very  eyes.  He  found  himself  an  outcast 
in  his  native  city — deserted  and  avoided  as  though 
stricken  with  leprosy.  He  was  an  Abolitionist.  And 
what  was  that  but  a  movable  pest — corruption  an 
imate — death  in  life  ?  Any  Abolitionist  was  despic 
able  :  he  most  of  all,  because  by  birth  and  breeding 


84  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

he  was  a  gentleman.  Therefore  the  respectability 
of  Boston  stayed  only  long  enough  to  brand  him  as 
"  the  friend  of  niggers,"  and  then  turned  away  from 
him  in  unspeakable  disgust. 

In  all  the  older  towns  of  this  country — Boston, 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Charleston,  St.  Louis- 
class  distinctions  were  formerly  rigid  as  the  etiquette 
of  the  Court  of  St.  James.  One  aristocracy  always 
sympathizes  with  another.  This  feeling  is  the  cement 
that  held  together  the  "  best"  families  of  the  North 
and  the  "  first"  families  of  the  South.  .And  this  ex 
plains  why  these  families,  North  as  well  as  South, 
abhorred  the  Abolitionists,  who,  in  attacking  slav 
ery,  were  sapping  caste  itself.  It  was  a  new 
phase  of  the  world-old  contest  between  the  classes 
and  the  masses.  That  one  of  their  own  order  should 
go  into  the  Abolition  camp  enraged  the  dons  and 
donas.  It  was  like  deserting  to  the  enemy  in  time" 
of  war.  Hence  Wendell  Phillips  was  looked  upon 
as  a  social  Benedict  Arnold.  The  marvel  is,  not 
that  they  felt  as  they  did,  but  that  he  felt  as  he  did. 
The  fact  that  he  so  soon  and  so  completely  emanci 
pated  himself  from  the  narrow  prejudices  of  such  an 
environment,  is  the  best  proof  of  his  moral  greatness. 

But  did  he  not  feel  his  outlawry  ?  How  could  he 
help  it  ?  Remember  his  position.  Think  of  his  out 
look.  But  it  doubly  endears  him  to  posterity  that 
he  never  complained,  never  besought,  never  re 
treated  an  inch,  nor  filed  down  a  principle,  nor  soft 
ened  a  phrase  to  regain  his  place  and  conciliate  es 
teem.  He  had  counted  the  cost.  He  regarded  his 
forfeited  distinctions,  all  possible  advancement  within 
his  reach,  as  "  dust  in  the  measure  and  fine  dust  in 
the  balance,"  when  weighed  against  the  honor  of 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  85 

standing  with  God  and  befriending  those  who  were 
ready  to  perish.  What  he  lost  he  valued  ;  what  he 
gained  he  held  as  an  abundant  compensation.  It 
hurt  him  to  feel  that  he  had  disappointed  those  who 
loved  him.  All  the  more  resolutely  did  he  turn  for 
consolation  to  the  service  of  the  poor  and  miserable 
and  blind  and  naked.  No  such  sacrifices  have  been 
made  by  any  other  American.  But  he  had  and  has 
his  exceeding  great  reward.  All  this  the  poet  Low 
ell  has  magnificently  embalmed  in  a  descriptive  son 
net  which  he  wrote  not  long  afterward  and  dedicated 
to  Wendell  Phillips  : 

"  He  stood  upon  the  world's  broad  threshold  :  wide 

The  din  of  battle  and  of  slaughter  rose  ; 
He  saw  God  stand  upon  the  weaker  side, 

That  sank  in  seeming  loss  before  its  foes  ; 
Many  there  were  who  made  great  haste  and  sold 

Unto  the  coming  enemy  their  swords. 
He  scorned  their  gifts  of  fame,  and  power,  and  gold, 

And,  underneath  their  soft  and  flowery  words, 
Heard  the  cold  serpent  hiss  ;  therefore  he  went 

And  humbly  joined  him  to  the  weaker  part, 
Fanatic  named,  and  fool,  yet  well  content 

So  he  could  be  the  nearer  to  God's  heart, 
And  feel  its  solemn  pulses  sending  blood 

Through  all  the  widespread  veins  of  endless  good." 


VII. 

IN    FANEUIL   HALL. 

MR.  PHILLIPS  and  Miss  Greene  were  married  on 
October  I2th,  1837.'  He  wedded  an  invalid — a  life 
long  invalid,  as  it  turned  out.  Through  some  defect 
of  nervous  organization2  the  lady,  even  as  a  child, 
was  frequently  shut  up  and  closed  in,  being  often, 
and  as  the  time  passed  increasingly  confined  to  her 
room.  Beginning  as  lovers,  they  remained  lovers 
to  the  end.  Their  honeymoon  stretched  from  the 
altar  to  the  grave.  Because  of  his  wife's  ill-health 
the  husband  from  the  start  added  to  the  lover  the 
tender  nurse.  And  this  function,  also,  was  to  find 
exercise  until  the  final  scene.  Mrs.  Phillips  was  in 
ordinately  fond  of  reading.  When,  as  was  often  the 
case,  she  was  too  sick  to  hold  a  book,  Mr.  Phillips 
would  be  her  eyes.  This  was  her  greatest  treat. 
Those  who  have  heard  him  read  will  know  why,  for 
in  this  delightful,  and,  strange  to  say,  rare  accom 
plishment  he  had  no  rival.  She  had  then  and  ever 
retained  a  singular  transparent  beauty — blue  eyes, 
magnificent  long  hair,  Hebe's  complexion,  and  the 
form  of  Juno.  In  the  face  of  pain,  and  of  the  dep 
rivation  that  comes  from  pain,  she  was  joyous  in 


1  Miss  Mary  Grew,   Mrs.   Phillips's  cousin  and  life-long  intimate, 
confirms  this  date. 

'2  So  says  Dr.  David  Thayer,  the  family  physician. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  S/ 

disposition,  with  unfailing  good  spirits,  and  fond 
of  fun  and  stories,  in  which  respect  her  husband 
matched  her,  so  that  hilarity  was  with  them  an  abid 
ing  guest.  "My  better  three  quarters,"  was  her 
favorite  descriptive  phrase  of  him.  And,  evidently, 
it  had  been  love  at  first  sight  on  her  side  as  on  his, 
for  she  confesses  :  "  When  I  first  met  Wendell  I 
used  to  think,  '  It  can  never  come  to  pass  ;  such  a 
being  as  he  is  could  never  think  of  me.'  I  looked 
upon  it  as  something  as  strange  as  a  fairy-tale."  ' 

To  a  relative,  on  her  first  birthday  after  marriage, 
she  further  expresses  her  feelings  with  a  na'ive  pen  : 

"  November  19.  1837. 

"  Do  you  remember  it  is  Ann  Terry's  birthday,  and  that  I  am 
so  aged  ?  Only  last  year  I  thought  I  should  never  see  another 
birthday,  but  must  leave  him  in  the  infancy  of  our  love,  in  the 
dawn  of  my  new  life  ;  and  how  does  to-day  find  me  ?  —the  blessed 
and  happy  wife  of  one  whom  I  thought  I  should  never  perhaps 
live  to  see.  Thanks  be  to  God  for  all  His  goodness  to  us,  and 
may  He  make  me  more  worthy  of  my  Wendell.  I  cannot  help 
thinking  how  little  I  have  acquired,  while  Wendell,  only  two 
years  older,  seems  to  know  a  world  more  ;  so 

"  '  .  .  .   that  still  the  wonder  grew, 
How  one  small  head  could  carry  all  he  knew.'  "  5 

In  the  midst  of  their  new-born  gladness,  long  be 
fore  the  orange-blossoms  had  time  to  shrivel,  an 
event  occurred  which  was  the  occasion  of  Mr.  Phil- 
lips's  dtbut  as  an  orator,  and  which  gave  him  the 
world  for  an  audience. 

The  essential  blasphemy  of  slavery  lay  in  this, 
that  it  broke  into  and  desecrated  the  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  by  reducing  a  man  to  be  a  chattel.  It 


"  Ann  Phillips,"  by  Mrs.  Alford,  p.  5.  *  Ib.,  pp.  5,  6. 


88  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

dealt  in  men  and  women  as  a  drover  trades  in  cattle. 
It  changed  marriage  into  prostitution,  and  made 
every  plantation  a  nest  of  brothels.  It  herded 
negroes  together  as  swine  herd.  It  sold  their  off 
spring  as  hogs  are  sold.  John  Wesley,  after  living 
two  years  in  the  midst  of  slavery  in  Georgia,  shook 
the  dust  from  his  feet  against  it  and  sailed  from 
Savannah  back  to  England,  crying  out  as  he  left, 
"  Slavery  is  the  sum  of  all  villainies."  The  truest, 
tersest,  strongest  half  dozen  words  ever  tabled 
against  it.  Well  he  knew  that  language  had  no 
word  that  could  fitly  name  such  a  system.  So  in 
despair  of  naming  it,  he  could  only  define  it.  As  he 
gazed  at  it  no  wonder  his  eyes  filled,  his  sight  grew 
dim,  his  brain  grew  dizzy.  He  listened  till  shrieks 
stunned  him.  He  pondered  the  ghastly  horror  till 
the  breath  he  drew  steamed  rank  with  scent  of 
blood  !  *  We  have  learned  in  a  previous  chapter 
what  befell  the  humane  spirits  who,  in  the  land  of 
liberty,  ventured  to  repeat  the  definition  of  the  great 
apostle  of  Methodism.  Slavery  now  went  a  step 
further  and  proceeded  from  persecution  to  martyr 
dom.  On  November  7th,  1837,  it  murdered  the 
Rev.  Elijah  P.  Lovejoy,  at  Alton,  in  Illinois.  The 
story  of  his  death  has  been  often  told.  It  cannot  be 
told  too  often.  The  fact  and  the  lesson  of  it,  Ameri 
cans  are  bound  to  reiterate  in  words  of  fire  until 
"the  deep  damnation  of  his  taking  off"  shall  be 
burned  into  the  indignant  consciousness  of  every 
freeman. 

Mr.    Lovejoy   was   a   Presbyterian   clergyman,   a 
graduate   of    Waterville   College,    in   the   State   of 


1  Weld's  "  Eulogy  on  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  25. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  89 

Maine,  where  he  was  born,  and  of  Princeton  The 
ological  Seminary.  He  went  to  the  West  after  com 
pleting  his  studies  and  made  a  home  in  St.  Louis. 
Here  his  sect  made  him  the  editor  of  their  local  or 
gan,  the  Observer.  He  was  not  an  Abolitionist.  He 
had  not  grown  up  to  that  as  yet.  But  he  saw  enough, 
heard  enough,  felt  enough  in  that  slave-holding  com 
munity  to  make  him  hate  shivery.  One  day  a  negro 
killed  an  officer  in  attempting  to  avoid  arrest.  He 
was  seized  in  jail  by  a  gang  of  lynchers,  taken  out, 
chained  to  a  tree,  and  burned  to  death.  Mediaeval 
barbarism  !  Efforts  were  made  to  punish  the  mur 
derers.  The  judge  (whose  suggestive  name  was 
Lawless)  charged  the  Grand  Jury  substantially  as 
follows  :  "  When  men  are  hurried  by  some  mysteri 
ous,  metaphysical,  electric  frenzy  to  commit  a  deed 
of  violence,  they  are  absolved  from  guilt.  If  you 
should  find  that  such  was  the  fact  in  this  case  then 
act  not  at  all.  The  case  transcends  your  jurisdic 
tion  ;  it  is  beyond  the  reach  of  human  law."  Of 
course  they  did  not  bring  in  an  indictment.  Mr. 
Lovejoy  commented  in  the  Observer  upon  this  out 
rageous  charge  as  it  deserved.  Then  the  "  mysteri 
ous,  metaphysical,  electric  frenzy"  again  found  ex 
pression,  and  his  printing-office  was  gutted.  The 
editor  decided  to  remove  his  headquarters  to  Alton, 
in  Illinois,  ten  miles  up  the  Mississippi,  on  the  free- 
soil  side  of  the  riv^er.  He  was  now  on  free  soil,  but, 
alas,  not  among  free  men  !  No  sooner  was  his  press 
landed  than  a  mob  destroyed  it.  He  procured  a  new 
one.  This  also  was  ruined.2  Then  he  appealed  to 
the  mayor  for  protection.  This  magistrate  affirmed 


1  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  Oliver  Johnson,  p.  223.  9  Ib. 


QO  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

his  inability  to  shield  the  victim,  saying  :  "  I  have 
no  police  force."  To  this  Mr.  Lovejoy  replied  : 
1  Very  well,  I  will  get  another  press,  and  with  your 
consent  I  will  enroll  a  special  police  force  in  the  in 
terest  of  law  and  order."  The  mayor  assented. 
The  defenders  were  marshalled.  The  third  press 
arrived.  The  next  night  the  grog-shops  vomited 
forth  their  bloats,  the  building  where  the  press  was 
sheltered  was  assailed  with  incendiary  torches  and 
seditious  muskets,  and  in  the  act  of  protecting  his 
property,  with  the  mayor's  sanction,  Mr.  Lovejoy 
was  shot  down  like  a  mad  dog.  As  he  fell,  his  hud 
dle  of  supporters  scattered  amid  a  fusillade  of  bullets, 
the  house  was  fired,  and  the  press  was  for  the  third 
time  flung  into  the  Mississippi.1 

The  news  from  Alton  convulsed  the  continent. 
The  South  openly  exulted.  The  North  condemned 
the  mob,  but  lamented  the  "  imprudence"  of  the 
victim  ;  which  reminds  one  of  the  man  down  in 
Maine  who,  in  speaking  of  the  prohibitory  liquor  law, 
said,  "  He  was  in  favor  of  the  law,  but  agin  its  ex 
ecution  !"  Only  the  more  thoughtful  recognized  the 
tragedy  for  what  it  was,  and  saw  in  it  the  burial  of 
a  bravo's  dagger  in  the  heart  of  liberty. 

Strangely  enough  Boston,  which  was  farthest  off, 
was  most  moved.  It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  the 
old  town.  A  number  of  eminent  citizens,  headed  by 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Charming,  applied  for  the  use  of  Faneuil 
Hall  in  which  to  denounce  the  outrage  ;  not  as 
Abolitionists,  with  whom  few  were  affiliated,  but  as 
believers  in  free  speech  and  a  free  press.  The  mayor 
and  aldermen  refused  the  hall  on  the  ground  that  the 


"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  O.  Johnson,  p.  226. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  91 

country  might  regard  the  meeting  "as  the  public 
voice  of  the  city."  '  This  denial  increased  the  agita 
tion.  Dr.  Charming  appealed  to  Boston  in  an  open 
letter,  which  resulted  in  another  application,  signed 
by  an  enlarged  number  of  influential 'names.  Now 
the  municipal  authorities  heard  and  obeyed  ;  the  hall 
was  opened.2 

What  place  could  be  so  conspicuously  fit  for  the 
rebuke  of  an  attack  on  freedom  as  the  "  Cradle  of 
Liberty  ?" 

Faneuil  Hall  was  built  "  at  his  own  cost"  and  pre 
sented  to  Boston  in  1742,  by  Peter  Faneuil,  a  wealthy 
merchant  of  the  city,  whose  Huguenot  ancestors  had 
been  driven  out  of  France  by  the  tyranny  of  Louis 
XIV.,  when,  at  the  instigation  of  a  mistress,  he  re 
voked  the  Edict  of  Nantes  ;3  just  as  the  Pilgrims 
had  been  exiled  from  England  by  the  inquisitive 
despotism  of  the  Stuarts.  Boston,  in  accepting 
the  gift,  named  it  after  the  generous  donor.4  Hence 
it  belonged  to  liberty  in  its  very  origin.  It  received 
a  further  consecration  when,  in  the  days  which  ush 
ered  in  the  Revolution,  the  "  Sons  of  Liberty"  were 
wont  to  meet  within  its  walls  to  cheer  James  Otis  in 
his  defiance  of  George  III.  and  Lord  North.  "  Cra- 


1  "Garrison  and  his  Times,"  by  O.  Johnson,  p.  227. 
3  Ib.     With  Mr.  Johnson  all  other  authorities  agree. 

3  See  a  curious  book,   "  Dealings  with  the  Dead,"  published  in 
Boston  in  1856,  in  which  the  descent  and  life  of  Peter  Faneuil  are 
more  elaborately  traced  than  anywhere  else. 

4  Ib.    This  was  voted  at  a  town  meeting  held  in  1742.     The  hall 
was  burned  January   I3th,   1761,   nothing  but  the  walls  remaining. 
The  town  rebuilt  it  in  1762 — P.  Faneuil  having  died  soon  after  its  first 
erection.     In   1806  it  was  enlarged,   its  area  being  doubled  on  the 
ground,  and  another  story  was  added.    Since  then  it  has  remained  as 
it  now  stands. 


92  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

die  of  Liberty,"  indeed!  And  now  about  to  rock 
the  lusty  child  again,  and  to  become  the  cradle  of 
freedom,  not  for  one  race,  but  for  all — to  rock  the 
genius  of  universal  emancipation. 

Having  obtained  the  hall,  the  managers  of  the  meet 
ing  determined  to  use  it  in  the  daytime,  their  pru 
dence  leading  them  to  fear  lest  the  Alton  mob  might 
reappear  in  Boston  under  cover  of  the  congenial 
darkness.1  The  behavior  of  the  Abolitionists,  too, 
was  admirable  at  this  crisis.  Although  indignant 
beyond  all  others,  their  souls  aflame,  they  carefully 
abstained  from  appearing  in  connection  with  the 
meeting,  and  their  names  were  conspicuous  only  by 
their  absence  from  the  published  call  and  the  various 
preliminaries,  like  the  images  of  Brutus  and  Cassius 
in  the  imperial  procession  in  ancient  Rome.2  In  fact, 
they  had  no  wish  to  add  to  the  prevailing  excite 
ment,  and  were  willing  enough  to  have  their  places 
•  filled  by  more  "  respectable"  citizens,  if  these  would 
act.  But  they  meant,  of  course,  to  go  to  Faneuii 
Hall. 

On  December  8th,  1837,  in  the  morning,  the  meet 
ing  was  called  to  order.  The  old  hall,  used  to 
crowds,  was  full  to  suffocation.  The  throng  was 
divided  into  three  factions  :  one  third  being  free  dis- 
cussionists,  among  whom  were  sprinkled  here  and 
there  an  Abolitionist  (the  salt  which  was  to  give  savor 
to  the  hour)  ;  another  third  being  mobocrats,  present 
to  make  mischief  ;  while  the  remaining  third  were 
indifferent,  idle  spectators,  attracted  by  curiosity  and 
swayed  to  and  fro  by  each  speaker  in  turn,  but  hold- 


1   "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  227. 

-  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  ii.,  p.  189. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  93 

ing-  the  balance  of  power.1  The  proceedings  opened 
quietly  and  decorously.  The  Hon.  Jonathan  Phil 
lips,  a  wealthy  Bostonian,  a  warm  friend  of  Dr. 
Charming,  and  a  kinsman  of  Wendell  Phillips,  took 
the  chair.  Dr.  Channing  made  a  brief  but  impres 
sive  address,  speaking  from  a  lectern  set  in  front  of 
the  platform  and  well  out  toward  the  centre  of  the 
hall  ;  a  position  which  he  selected  because  he  feared 
he  might  not  be  heard  amid  the  rush  and  crush  if 
farther  back.2  Resolutions  drawn  by  Dr.  Channing 
were  next  offered  and  read  by  the  Hon.  Benjamin 
F.  Hallet.  These  were  seconded  by  George  S.  Hil- 
lard,  Esq.,  in  an  incisive  speech. 

As  Mr.  Hillard  concluded  there  was  a  stir,  then 
an  outburst  of  anticipatory  applause,  as  the  Attor 
ney-General  of  Massachusetts  was  seen  to  elbow  his 
way  down  toward  the  great  gilded  eagle  in  the  gal 
lery  over  the  main  entrance,  with  the  evident  pur-  • 
pose  of  making  a  speech  not  on  the  programme. 
Everybody  knew  this  official— James  Tricothic  Aus 
tin.  He  was  a  parishioner  of  Dr.  Channing,  a  popu 
lar  politician,  and  a  master  of  the  art  of  captivating 
the  crowd.  With  a  red  face  and  a  bullying  manner, 
thunder  in  his  voice  and  demagogism  on  his  lips, 
he  at  once,  with  practised  skill,  began  an  harangue 
clearly  intended  and  adroitly  adapted  either  to  break 
up  the  meeting  in  a  row  or  array  it  against  the  ob- 


1  So  writes  Mrs.  Chapman  in  a  letter  to  Harriet  Martineau,   and 
quoted  by  her   in  an  article  in  the  Westminster  Review,    December, 
1838,  on  "  The  Martyr  Age." 

2  Weld's  "  Eulogy,"  p.  34.    There  are  no  seats  in  Faneuil  Hall.     At 
great  gatherings  there  the  people  stand.     This,  of  course,  increases 
the  capacity  of  the  hall,  and  also,  in  times  of  excitement,  the  difficulty 
of  controlling  the  auditory. 


94  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ject  of  its  callers.  He  claimed  that  there  was  "a 
conflict  of  laws"  between  Missouri  and  Illinois  ; 
compared  the  slaves  to  a  menagerie,  "  with  lions, 
tigers,  a  hyena  and  an  elephant,  a  jackass  or  two, 
and  monkeys  in  plenty,"  and  likened  Lovejoy  to  one 
who  should  "  break  the  bars  and  let  loose  the  caravan 
to  prowl  about  the  streets  ;"  talked  of  the  rioters  of 
Alton  as  akin  to  the  "  orderly  mob"  which  threw  the 
tea  into  Boston  Harbor  in  1773,  and  declared  their 
victim  "  died  as  the  fool  dieth  ;"  and  in  direct  and 
insulting  allusion  to  Dr.  Channing  closed  by  assert 
ing  that  a. clergyman  with  a  gun  in  his  hand,  or  one 
"  mingling  in  the  debates  of  a  popular  assembly,  was 
marvellously  out  of  place."  J 

When  he  retired  Faneuil  Hall  rocked  indeed,  but 
not  in  the  old-time  way.  Hands  of  devils  were 
rocking  it.  Friends  of  law  and  order  were  aghast. 
.The  indifferent  were  drawn  over  by  the  infectious 
enthusiasm  to  the  side  of  the  apologist  for  murder, 
and  joined  Austin's  myrmidons  in  their  roar  of 
triumph.  The  foes  of  freedom  had  captured  the 
hall  !  They  were  so  sure  of  this  that  they  did  not 
care  to  precipitate  a  riot,  but  waited  to  vote  down, 
the  resolutions  and  thus  turn  the  protest  into  an  in 
dorsement. 

At  this  wild  moment,  under  the  very  shadow  of 
the  impending  catastrophe,  Wendell  Phillips,  who 
was  standing  on  the  floor,  a  mere  auditor,  with  no 
thought  of  speaking,2  leaped  upon  the  lectern  and 


1  Vide  the  Boston  journals  of  December  gth,  1837. 

2  Mr.  Weld,  usually  the  most  accurate  of  men,  thinks  he  did  intend 
to  speak,  though,  of  course,  unaware  of  the  need  of  replying  to  Aus 
tin.    See  his  "  Eulogy,"  p.  34.     He  is  mistaken.    The  testimony  is  the 
other  way.     The  speech  itself  is  the  proof,  for  it  is  throughout  a  reply 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

confronted  the  raging  multitude,  himself  an  embodied 
Vesuvius.  But  the  fire  was  as  yet  smothered,  the 
lava  did  not  at  once  begin  to  flow  ;  the  eruption  was 
in  reserve.  His  easy  attitude,  his  calm  dignity,  the 
classic  beauty  of  his  face,  challenged  attention  and 
piqued  curiosity.  Suddenly  the  turbulence  hushed 
itself  into  silence.  Then  that  marvellous  voice, 
sweet  as  a  song,  clear  as  a  flute,  was  heard  for  the 
first  time  by  a  vast  audience  and  completed  the 
charm  which  his  masterful  bearing  had  begun  to 
work.  It  was  the  opportunity  of  a  lifetime.  It 
meant  renown  or  discomfiture,  with  a  nation  for  the 
witness.  Would,  could  this  stripling  of  twenty-six 
lift  himself  to  the  level  of  the  lofty  occasion  and 
dominate  the  scene?  All  fears  were  soon  and  hap 
pily  dispelled.  Mr.  Phillips,  however,  was  too  full 
of  his  subject  to  be  self-conscious.  He  spoke  not 
for  fame,  but  for  freedom.  "  My  purpose,"  said  he, 
in  referring  to  the  occasion,  "  was  to  secure  the  pas 
sage  of  Dr.  Channing's  resolutions."  He  com 
menced  in  that  quiet,  dulcet  tone  with  which  all 
America  was  erelong  to  become  familiar  : 

"  MR.  CHAIRMAN  :  We  have  met  for  the  freest  discussion  of 
these  resolutions,  and  the  events  which  gave  rise  to  them  (cries 
of  '  Question  !'  '  Hear  him  !'  '  Go  on  !'  '  No  gagging  !'  etc.). 
I  hope  I  shall  be  permitted  to  express  my  surprise  at  the  senti 
ments  of  the  last  speaker — surprise  not  only  at  such  sentiments 
from  such  a  man,  but  at  the  applause  they  have  received  within 
these  walls.  A  comparison  has  been  drawn  between  the  events 
of  the  Revolution  and  the  tragedy  at  Alton.  We  have  heard  it 
asserted  here,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  that  Great  Britain  had  a  right  to 
tax  the  Colonies,  and  we  have  heard  the  mob  at  Alton,  the 


to  Austin.  Of  course  he  had  thought  deeply  on  the  subject,  so  that, 
while  speaking  extemporaneously,  he  spoke  out  of  knowledge  as  well 
as  out  of  conviction. 


9$  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

drunken  murderers  of  Lovejoy,  compared  to  those  patriot  fathers 
who  threw  the  tea  overboard  !  (Great  applause.)  Fellow- 
citizens,  is  this  Faneuil  Hall  doctrine  ?  ('  No,  no  !')  The  mob 
at  Alton  were  met  to  wrest  from  a  citizen  his  just  rights — met 
to  resist  the  laws.  We  have  been  told  that  our  fathers  did  the 
same  ;  and  the  glorious  mantle  of  Revolutionary  precedent  has 
been  thrown  over  the  mobs  of  our  days.  To  make  out  their  title 
to  such  defence,  the  gentleman  says  that  the  British  Parliament 
had  a  right  to  tax  these  Colonies.  It  is  manifest  that,  without 
this,  his  parallel  falls  to  the  ground  ;  for  Lovejoy  had  stationed 
himself  within  constitutional  bulwarks.  He  was  not  only  de 
fending  the  freedom  of.  the  press,  but  he  was  under  his  own  roof, 
in  arms,  with  the  sanction  of  the  civil  authority.  The  men  who 
assailed  him  went  against  and  over  the  laws.  The  mob,  as  the 
gentleman  terms  it— mob,  forsooth  !— certainly  we  sons  of  the 
tea-spillers  are  a  marvellously  patient  generation  ! — the  '  orderly 
mob  '  which  assembled  in  the  '  Old  South  '  to  destroy  the  tea  were 
met  to  resist,  not  the  laws,  but  illegal  exactions.  Shame  on  the 
American  who  calls  the  tea-tax  and  stamp-act  laws  !  Our 
fathers  resisted,  not  the  king's  prerogative,  but  the  king's  usur 
pation.  To  find  any  other  account,  you  must  read  our  Revolu 
tionary  history  upside  down.  Our  State  archives  are  loaded 
with  arguments  of  John  Adams  to  prove  taxes  laid  by  the  British 
Parliament  unconstitutional— beyond  its  power.  It  was  not  till 
this  was  made  out  that  the  men  of  New  England  rushed  to  arms. 
The  arguments  of  the  Council  Chamber  and  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  preceded  and  sanctioned  the  contest.  To  draw  the 
conduct  of  our  ancestors  into  a  precedent  for  mobs,  for  a  right 
to  resist  laws  we  ourselves  have  enacted,  is  an  insult  to  their 
memory.  The  difference  between  the  excitement  of  those  days 
and  our  own,  which  this  gentleman  in  kindness  to  the  latter  has 
overlooked,  is  simply  this  :  the  men  of  that  day  went  for  the 
right,  as  secured  by  laws.  They  were  the  people  rising  to  sus 
tain  the  laws  and  constitution  of  the  province.  The  rioters  of 
our  day  go  for  their  own  wills,  right  or  wrong.  Sir,  when  I 
heard  the  gentleman  lay  down  principles  which  place  the  mur 
derers  of  Alton  side  by  side  with  Otis  and  Hancock,  with  Quincy 
and  Adams,  I  thought  those  pictured  lips  (pointing  to  the  por 
traits  in  the  hall)  would  have  broken  into  voice  to  rebuke  the 
recreant  American — the  slanderer  of  the  dead  !" 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  97 

As  Mr.  Phillips  hurled  this  thunderbolt  at  the  At 
torney-General,  and  accompanied  it  with  an  electric 
glance  and  gesture,  the  arches  of  Faneuil  Hall  echoed 
with  successive  thunder-claps  of  approval,  which  the 
partisans  of  Austin  were  too  dazed  to  do  more  than 
attempt  to  resent.  As  the  plaudits  subsided,  the 
waiting  orator,  standing  there  in  the  attitude  of  fiery 
readiness,  followed  his  last  sentence  and  climaxed  it 
with  this  volcanic  flame-burst  : 

"  The  gentleman  said  he  should  sink  into  insignificance  if  he 
condescended  to  gainsay  the  principles  of  these  resolutions. 
For  the  sentiments  he  has  uttered,  on  soil  consecrated  by  the 
prayers  of  Puritans  and  the  blood  of  patriots,  the  earth  should 
have  yawned  and  swallowed  him  up  !" 

This  was  Vesuvius  in  full  eruption,  and  as  Pompeii 
was  buried,  so  now  the  heaving  earth  seemed  to 
swallow  the  patron  of  mobs  and  murderers.  The 
scene  beggars  description.  Men  lost  their  reason. 
Enthusiasm  became  delirium.  Anticipating  defeat, 
as  just  before  they  had  anticipated  triumph,  the 
riotous  faction  now  attempted  to  precipitate  vio 
lence.  They  pushed  and  howled  vainly  ;  for  Mr. 
Phillips  had  mesmerized  the  mere  spectators  who  had 
cheered  Austin's  sophisms  into  complete  sympathy 
with  himself,  and  holding  them  under  his  eye  and 
voice  would  not  let  them  go.  Waiting  again  with 
that  serene  composure  always  so  characteristic  of 
his  style,  and  as  marked  at  the  start  as  at  the  close 
of  his  career,  he  paused  only  long  enough  to  obtain 
so  much  of  silence  as  might  float  his  tones  to  the  ears 
of  the  throng,  and  felt  that  then  his  voice  and  per 
suasions  would  enforce  attention.  In  a  moment 
those  even,  honeyed  cadences  once  more  filled  the 
hall,  and  the  crowd,  entranced,  bent  with  eagerness 


98  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

to  hear.  The  gifted  boy  had  conquered  already, 
and  from  this  point  to  the  close  he  spoke  without 
interruption,  save  such  as  punctuated  his  sentences 
with  the  approbation  of  the  auditors.  •  Having  buried 
the  Attorney-General  out  of  sight,  he  proceeded  to 
dissect  his  argument  : 

"  Allusion  has  been  made  to  what  lawyers  understand  very 
well — the  '  conflict  ot  laws.'  We  are  told  that  nothing  but  the 
Mississippi  River  runs  between  St.  Louis  and  Alion  ;  and  the 
conflict  of  laws  somehow  or  other  gives  the  citizens  of  the  former 
a  right  to  find  fault  with  the  defender  of  the  press  for  publishing 
his  opinions  so  near  their  limits.  Will  the  gentleman  venture 
that  argument  before  lawyers  ?  How  the  laws  of  the  two  States 
could  be  said  to  come  into  conflict  in  such  circumstances  I  ques 
tion  whether  any  lawyer  in  this  audience  can  explain  or  under 
stand.  No  matter  whether  the  line  that  divides  one  sovereign 
State  from  another  be  an  imaginary  one  or  ocean  wide,  the 
moment  you  cross  it  the  State  you  leave  is  blotted  out  of  exist 
ence,  so  far  as  you  are  concerned.  The  Czar  might  as  well 
claim  to  control  the  deliberations  of  Faneuil  Hall,  as  the  laws 
of  Missouri  demand  reverence,  or  the  shadow  of  obedience,  from 
an  inhabitant  of  Illinois. 

"  Sir,  as  I  understand  this  affair,  it  was  not  an  individual  pro 
tecting  his  property  ;  it  was  not  one  body  o[  armed  men  assault 
ing  another,  and  making  the  streets  of  a  peaceful  city  run  blood 
with  their  contentions.  It  did  not  bring  back  the  scenes  in 
some  old  Italian  cities,  where  family  met  family,  and  faction  met 
faction,  and  mutually  trampled  the  laws  under  foot.  No  ;  the 
men  in  that  house  were  regularly  enrolled  under  the  sanction 
of  the  mayor.  There  being  no  militia  in  Alton,  about  seventy 
men  were  enrolled  with  the  approbation  of  the  mayor.  These 
relieved  each  other  every  other  night.  About  thirty  men  were 
in  arms  on  the  night  of  the  6th,  when  the  press  was  landed. 
The  next  evening  it  was  not  thought  necessary  to  summon  more 
than  half  that  number  ;  among  these  was  Lovejoy.  It  was, 
therefore,  you  perceive,  sir,  the  police  of  the  city  resisting  rioters 
—  civil  government  breasting  itself  to  the  shock  of  lawless  men. 
Here  is  no  question  about  the  right  of  self-defence.  It  is,  in 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  99 

fact,  simply  this  :  Has  the  civil  magistrate  a  right  to  put  down 
a  riot  ?  Some  persons  seem  to  imagine  that  anarchy  existed  at 
Alton  from  the  commencement  of  these  disputes.  Not  at  all. 
No  one  of  us,'  says  an  eye-witness  and  a  comrade  of  Lovejoy, 
'  has  taken  up  arms  during  these  disturbances  but  at  the  com 
mand  of  the  mayor.'  Anarchy  did  not  settle  down  on  that  de 
voted  city  till  Lovejoy  breathed  his  last.  Till  then  the  law, 
represented  in  his  person,  sustained  itself  against  its  foes. 
When  he  fell,  civil  authority  was  trampled  under  foot.  He  had 
4  planted  himself  on  his  constitutional  rights' — appealed  to  the 
laws— claimed  the  protection  of  the  civil  authority— taken  refuge 
under  '  the  broad  shield  of  the  Constitution.  When  through 
that  he  was  pierced  and  fell,  he  fell  but  one  sufferer  in  a  com 
mon  catastrophe.'  He  took  refuge  under  the  banner  of  liberty — 
amid  its  folds  ;  and  when  he  fell,  its  glorious  stars  and  stripes, 
the  emblem  of  free  institutions,  around  which  cluster  so  many 
heart-stirring  memories,  were  blotted  out  in  the  martyr's  blood. 

"  If,  sir,  I  had  adopted  what  are  called  peace  principles,  I 
might  lament  the  circumstances  of  this  case.  But  all  you  who 
believe,  as  I  do,  in  the  right  and  duty  of  magistrates  to  execute 
the  laws,  join  with  me  and  brand  as  base  hypocrisy  the  conduct 
of  those  who  assemble  year  after  year  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  to 
fight  over  the  battles  of  the  Revolution,  and  yet  '  damn  with 
faint  praise,'  or  load  with  obloquy,  the  memory  of  this  man, 
who  shed  his  blood  in  defence  of  life,  liberty,  property,  and  the 
freedom  of  the  press  ! 

"  Imprudent  to  defend  the  liberty  of  the  press  !  Why  ?  Be 
cause  the  defence  was  unsuccessful  ?  Does  success  gild  crime 
into  patriotism,  and  want  of  it  change  heroic  self-devotion  to 
imprudence  ?  Was  Hampden  imprudent  when  he  drew  the 
sword  and  threw  away  the  scabbard  ?  Yet  he,  judged  by  that 
single  hour,  was  unsuccessful.  After  a  short  exile,  the  race  he 
hated  sat  again  upon  the  throne. 

"  Imagine  yourself  present  when  the  first  news  of  Bunker  Hill 
battle  reached  a  New  England  town.  The  tale  would  have  run 
thus  :  '  The  patriots  are  routed  ;  the  redcoats  victorious  ;  War 
ren  lies  dead  upon  the  field.'  With  what  scorn  would  that  Tory 
have  been  received,  who  should  have  charged  Warren  with  im 
prudence  !  who  should  have  said  that,  bred  as  a  physician,  he 
was  '  out  of  place  '  in  the  battle,  and  *  died  as  the  fool  dieth  !  ' 


100  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

{Great  applause.}  How  would  the  intimation  have  been  re 
ceived,  that  Warren  and  his  associates  should  have  waited  a 
better  time  ?  But,  if  success  be  indeed  the  only  criterion  of 
prudence,  Respice  finem — wait  till  the  end. 

*'  Presumptuous  to  assert  the  freedom  of  the  press  on  Ameri 
can  ground  !  Is  the  assertion  of  such  freedom  before  the  age  ? 
So  much  before  the  age  as  to  leave  one  no  right  to  make  it  be 
cause  it  displeases  the  community  ?  Who  invents  this  libel  on 
his  country  ?  It  is  this  very  thing  which  entitles  Lovejoy  to 
greater  praise,  the  disputed  right  which  provoked  the  Revo 
lution — taxation  without  representation — is  far  beneath  that  for 
which  he  died.  (Here  there  was  a  strong  and  general  expres 
sion  of  disapprobation.)  One  word,  gentlemen.  As  much  as 
thought  is  better  than  money,  so  much  is  the  cause  in  which 
Lovejoy  died  nobler  than  a  mere  question  of  taxes.  James  Otis 
thundered  in  this  hall  when  the  king  did  but  touch  his  pocket. 
Imagine,  if  you  can,  his  indignant  eloquence  had  England 
offered  to  put  a  gag  upon  his  lips.  (Great  applause.} 

"  The  question  that  stirred  the  Revolution  touched  our  civil 
interests.  This  concerns  us  not  only  as  citizens,  but  as  im 
mortal  beings.  Wrapped  up  in  its  fate,  saved  or  lost  with  it, 
are  not  only  the  voice  of  the  statesman,  but  the  instructions  of 
the  pulpit  and  the  progress  of  our  faith. 

"  The  clergy  4  marvellously  out  of  place  '  where  free  speech 
is  battled  for — liberty  of  speech  on  national  sins  ?  Does  the 
gentleman  remember  that  freedom  to  preach  was  first  gained, 
dragging  in  its  train  freedom  to  print  ?  I  thank  the  clergy  here 
present,  as  I  reverence  their  predecessors,  who  did  not  so  far 
forget  their  country  in  their  immediate  profession  as  to  deem  it 
duty  to  separate  themselves  from  the  struggle  of  '76 — the  May- 
hews  and  the  Coopers — who  remembered  they  were  citizens 
before  they  were  clergymen." 

Mr.  Phillips  closed  with  these  words  : 

"  I  am  glad,  sir,  to  see  this  crowded  house.  It  is  good  for  us 
to  be  here.  When  liberty  is  in  danger,  Faneuil  Hall  has  the 
right,  it  is  her  duty,  to  strike  the  key-note  for  these  United 
States.  I  am  glad,  for  one  reason,*  that  remarks  such  as  those 
to  which  I  have  alluded  have  been  uttered  here.  The  passage 


WENDELL    PHILLIP?. 

of  these  resolutions,  in  spite  of  this  opposition,  led  by  the  At 
torney-General  of  the  commonwealth,  will  show  more  clearly, 
more  decisively,  the  deep  indignation  with  which  Boston  regards 
this  outrage." 

When  the  whirlwind  of  applause  which  followed 
the  orator's  conclusion  had  rolled  away,  the  chair 
man  put  the  resolutions,  and  they  were  carried  by 
an  overwhelming  vote.1  Thus  was  defeat  turned 
into  victory  by  the  genius  of  Phillips,  as,  years  after 
ward,  that  other  defeat  at  Winchester  was  turned 
into  victory  by  the  magnetism  of  Sheridan. 

Where  now  and  what  was  the  Attorney-General  ? 
Nowhere  ,.and  nothing.  Transfixed  by  forked-light 
ning,  sic  exit  Austin.  Thus  may  all  the  foes  of  lib 
erty  be  buried  in  shame  and  sepulchred  in  ignominy  ! 

Oliver  Johnson,  who  was  one  of  Mr.  Phillips's 
auditors  that  morning,  remarks  : 

'  I  had  heard  him  once  before  (in  his  first  Anti- 
Slavery  speech  at  Lynn  2),  as  a  few  others  in  that 
great  meeting  probably  had,  and  rny  expectations 
were  high  ;  but  he  transcended  them  all  and  took  the 
audience  by  storm.  Never  before,  I  venture  to  say, 
did  the  walls  of  the  old  '  Cradle  of  Liberty  '  echo  to  a 
finer  strain  of  eloquence.  It  was  a  speech  to  which 
not  even  the  cornpletest  report  could  do  justice,  for 
such  a  report  could  not  bring  the  scene  and  the 
manner  of  the  speaker  vividly  before  the  reader.  It 
was  before  the  days  of  phonography,  and  the  report 
er  caught  only  a  pale  reflection  of  what  fell  from 
the  orator's  lips." 


1  So  wrote  Mr.  Garrison  to  G.  W.  Benson  on  the  following  day. 
Mr.  G.  was  present  as  an  auditor.  Vide  his  Life  by  his  sons,  vol. 
ii.,  p.  189,  note. 

-  Ante,  p.  81.  3  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  229. 


JO2  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Dr.  Charming,  too,  then  and  ever  afterward  testi 
fied  to  his  wonder  and  delight,  and  referred  espe 
cially  to  the  power  which  Phillips's  voice  exercised  ; 
catching  and  enchaining  the  riotous  throng  from  the 
moment  its  delicious  cadences  were  heard.1 

When  we  remember  all  the  circumstances — the 
momentous  occurrence  that  led  to  the  meeting, the 
public  excitement,  the  mixed  character  of  the  throng 
in  Faneuil  Hall,  the  ability  and  reputation  of  the 
Attorney-General,  who  no  doubt  bellowed  forth  the 
real  sentiments  of  the  majority,  the  presence  of  his 
partisans  there  in  great  numbers  for  the  purpose  of 
breaking  up  or  breaking  down  the  protest,  the  youth 
of  the  orator  and  his  lack  of  experience  in  handling 
a  mob — certainly  the  success  of  Wendell  Phillips  that 
day  was  marvellous.  It  revealed  him  to  himself  as 
well  as  to  the  world  and  fixed  his  destiny.  The 
orator  sprang  into  being  in  the  full  possession,  as  it 
should  seem,  of  all  his  powers — maturity  in  youth 
and  experience  ahead  of  knowledge— like  Minerva 
from  the  brain  of  Jove.  Not  in  American  history  is 
there  such  another  precocious  and  dramatic  orator 
ical  debut. 

From  that  hour  Faneuil  Hall  was  to  be  identified 
with  Wendell  Phillips,  as  until  that  hour  it  had  been 
identified  with  James  Otis.  The  eloquence  of  Otis 
blossomed  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  The 
eloquence  of  Phillips  was  to  flower  in  the  Proclama 
tion  of  Emancipation. 


1  "The  Golden  Age  of  American  Oratory."      By  E.  G.  Parker. 
Noiice  of  Wendell  Phillips. 


BOOK  II. 


NOON. 

1838-1865. 


I. 

THE   ABOLITIONISTS— MEN   AND    MEASURES. 

THE  decree  of  social  outlawry  pronounced  in  blue- 
blood  circles  against  Wendell  Phillips  when  he  be 
came  an  Abolitionist,  was  confirmed  and  stamped 
with  the  unchangeableness  of  the  laws  of  the  Medes 
and  Persians  after  the  speech  on  Lovejoy's  murder 
in  Faneuil  Hall.  That  was  death  ;  this  was  burial. 
The  young-  man,  however,  refused  to  concede  his 
decease,  and  certainly  proved  to  be  a  lively  corpse. 
More  correctly,  he  did  recognize  his  death  to  Fashion 
and  rejoiced  in  his  new  life  for  Humanity. 

Upon  looking  around  he  found  himself  in  congenial 
company — few  but  fit.  If  the  Abolitionists  were  not 
received  in  my  lady's  boudoir,  they  were  eagerly 
welcomed  by  those  ready  to  perish.  If  commerce 
averted  its  countenance  from  them  and  withheld  its 
golden  recompense,  the  great  Proprietor  of  heaven 
and  earth  adopted  them  to  be  His  heirs.  If  politics 
scorned  and  spat  upon  them  in  the  'thirties,  the 
sycophant  made  haste  to  crown  and  then  to  kneel 
before  them  in  the  'sixties.  Great  is  Success,  and 
Fashion  is  its  prophet  !  Bless  you,  there  is  all  the 
difference  in  the  world  between  the  John  Wesley  of 
1729,  whom  the  graceless  scholars  of  Oxford  nick 
named  "  methodist,"  and  the  pontifex  maximus  of 
the  largest  of  the  Christian  sects  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  And  there  is  the  same  difference  between 


106  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

those  whom  1837  pilloried  as  the  "friends  of  the 
niggers,"  and  1863  garlanded  as  the  "  saviours  of  a 
race,"  and  1865  as  the  reconstructors  of  the  conti 
nent.  But  our  business  at  present  is  with  the 
"  friends  of  the  niggers,"  not  with  the  honored,  be 
cause  successful  philanthropists. 

Who  were  some  of  these  Abolitionists  ?  Chief 
among  them  was  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  least 
pliable,  most  persistent  of  men.  His  head  was  worth 
more  than  Georgia  offered  for  it  or  than  the  South 
was  able  to  give.  A  phrenologist  would  have  pro 
nounced  firmness  the  ruling  elder  in  the  circuit  of 
his  faculties.  His  manner,  however,  not  as  comba 
tive  as  his  nature,  was  composed  and  conciliatory. 
Of  all  phases  of  the  question  to  which  he  had  dedi 
cated  his  life,  he  was  a  walking  encyclopaedia.  As 
an  organizer  he  was  unexcelled.  And  he  had  self- 
fed  fire  enough  to  thaw  the  ice  of  the  moral  North 
Pole,  and  melt  out  and  down  a  passage  to  the  tem 
perate  zone — to  the  conscience  and  heart  of  America. 
Such  was  the  director  of  the  Abolition  Societas  dc 
Propaganda  Fide  :  not  less  protean  than  his  namesake 
at  Rome. 

Around  Mr.  Garrison  were  grouped<  those  who 
had  already  heard  and  heeded  his  bugle-call.  There 
was  the  Rev.  Samuel  J.  May,  the  St.  John  of  the 
Garrisonians,1  whose  character  is  painted  in  that 
allusion  to  the  apostle  who  learned  his  creed  as  he 
leaned  on  the  breast  of  Jesus,  a  Unitarian  clergyman 
who  held  and  taught  that  man  was  more  than  money, 
and  that  Christianity  was  more  important  than  creed. 


1  Mr.  May  was  born,  1797  ;  died  1871.     Long  settled  in  Syracuse, 
N.  Y. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS,  IO/ 

There  was  John  G.  Whittier,  the  poet  of  freedom, 
with  the  bashful  manner  of  a  girl  and  the  moral  cour 
age  of  a  hero,  his  eyes  flashing  out  from  beneath  a 
beetling  crag  of  brow,  sure  to  attract  attention  and 
as  sure  to  decline  it.  There  was  Charles  C.  Bur- 
leigh,  most  unique  of  men,  in  person  outre,  with  long, 
flowing  hair,  unshorn  beard,  and  "  high-water" 
pantaloons  that  dangled  above  his  ankles — an  appear 
ance  which  made  him  the  inevitable  laughing-stock 
of  every  audience  until  he  began  to  speak  ;  then  his 
Niagara  rush  and  weight  of  utterance  changed  ridi 
cule  into  admiration  and  carried  opposition  over  to 
agreement.  His  life  was  an  apostleship.1 

"  Called  in  his  youth  to  sound  and  gauge 
The  moral  lapse  of  his  race  and  age, 
And,  sharp  as  truth,  the  contrast  draw 
Of  human  frailty  and  perfect  law  ; 
Possessed  by  the  one  dread  thought  that  lent 
Its  goad  to  his  fiery  temperament, 
Up  and  down  the  world  he  went, 
A  John  the  Baptist,  crying — Repent  !"  a 

There  was  Francis  Jackson,  a  successful  merchant, 
who  sold  his  goods,  not  his  principles,  and  who  at 
the  time  of  the  Garrison  mob  had  made  his  own 
house  a  sanctuary  of  liberty  by  opening  it  to  the 
heroines  whom  Mayor  Lyman  had  driven  out  of 
doors 3 — a  man  unpretentious  but  magnificent,  rich 
but  philanthropic,  a  knight-errant  of  trade,  and,  like 
Bayard,  sans peur  et  sans  reproche.  At  his  side  stood 
another  merchant,  Henry  G.  Chapman  (the  cousin 


1  Mr.  Burleigh  was  born  in  Connecticut,  in  1801  ;  died  at  Florence, 
Mass.,  in  1878. 

2  Whittier's  "  Preacher."     Diamond  edition,  p.  306. 

3  Vide  "  Wendell  Phillips's  Speeches,"  p.  219. 


IOS  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

of  Mrs.  Wendell  Phillips),  who  moved  in  the  best 
society,  dwelt  in  a  ceiled  house,  and  fared  sumptu 
ously  every  day  ;  but  who  accepted  the  condemna 
tion  of  his  pastor,  Dr.  Channing,  and  of  his  business 
and  social  intimates,  in  order  to  become  the  treasurer 
of  theA  bolition  cause — a  moneyed  man,  but  not  a  man 
of  money.  There  were  Ellis  Gray  Loring  and  Sam 
uel  E.  Sewall,  a  brace  of  conscientious  lawyers,  fitted 
by  legal  attainments  and  judicial  spirit  to  adorn  the 
bench,  but  who  read  over  the  entrance  to  their  Anti- 
Slavery  career  Dante's  motto  of  the  Inferno  : 

"  All  hope  abandon,  ye  who  enter  here  !" 

and  entered  notwithstanding.  The  brace  of  mer 
chants  and  the  brace  of  lawyers  were  matched  by  a 
brace  of  Congregational  ministers,  the  Rev.  Moses 
Thatcher  and  the  Rev.  Amos  Phelps,  able  and  elo 
quent  men,  who  felt  for  the  slaves  as  though  bound 
with  them,  and  the  latter  of  whom  gave  to  the 
Abolitionists  their  earliest  definition  of  slavery,  viz., 
"  Slavery  is  the  holding  of  a  human  being  as  prop 
erty."  ' 

Nor  was  Mr.  Garrison  the  only  editor  in  the 
humanitarian  coterie.  At  his  side  stood  David  Lee 
Child,  a  strong  writer,  a  Harvard  graduate,  yet  an 
honest  man.  Even  professional  scholarship  was 
represented  in  this  contracted  circle,  notably  repre 
sented  by  Charles  T.  C.  Pollen,  a  liberty-loving  Ger 
man,  who  occupied  the  chair  of  German  Language 
and  Literature  at  Cambridge,  which  he  was  soon 
driven  to  vacate  because  of  his  connection  with  the 
Abolitionists.  Thus  was  the  son  of  Luther,  who 


"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  73. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  IOQ 

came  to  America  in  the  same  ship  which  bore  Lafa 
yette  to  these  shores  in  1823,  requited  for  his  passion 
on  behalf  of  freedom.1 

The  tragedy  at  Alton  brought  into  the  Anti- 
Slavery  camp  another  recruit  destined  to  become  a 
mighty  man  of  valor — Edmund  Quincy.  His  pres 
ence  was  especially  welcome  to  Mr.  Phillips,  for  he 
came  out  of  the  same  social  set,2  snapped  the  same 
green  withes  of  aristocracy,  and  showed  the  same 
heroic  self-denial.  He  was  the  litterateur  of  Abolition, 
and  wrote  with  the  pen  of  Junius.  Having  gotten 
his  eyes  open  he  kept  them  open  until  he  saw  the 
glorious  end.3 

The  women  in  those  days,  as  in  all  days,  averaged 
better  than  the  men,  and  justified  the  saying  of 
Luther  :  "  I  have  oftentimes  noted  when  women 
espouse  a  cause  they  are  far  more  -fervent  in  faith, 
they  hold  to  it  more  stiff  and  fast  than  men  do  ;  as  we 
see  in  the  loving  Magdalen,  who  was  more  hearty 
and  bold  than  Peter  himself."  4  So  here  there  was 
no  dearth  of  heroines.  Each  one  wears  the  nimbus 
with  which  the  old  painters  crowned  the  Virgin. 
Some  of  them  we  shall  have  occasion  to  mention  as 
we  proceed.  At  the  outset  two  stood  forth  in  beau 
tiful  relief  like  the  figures  of  saints  in  a  cathedral. 
One  of  these  was  Lydia  Maria  Child,  the  wife  of 
Editor  David  Lee  Child,  the  earliest  and  most  popu- 

1  May's  "  Anti-Slavery  Recollections,"  p.  254.     See  also  the  "  Life 
of  Follen."     He  perished  in  the  fire  which  destroyed  the  steamboat 
Lexington  in  the  passage  from  New  York  to  Stonington,  January 
I3th,  1840. 

2  See  p.  39  of  this  volume. 

3  Mr.  Quincy  was  four  years  older  than  Mr.  Phillips.     He  died  in 
1877. 

4  "  Table  Talk,"  Bonn's  edition,  p.  367. 


I  10  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

lar  of  our  female  editors  and  authors  ;  ' '  than  whom, 
remarks  the  North  American  Review,  in  an  issue  of 
the  period,  "  few  women,  if  any,  have  done  more  or 
better  things  in  literature,  whether  in  its  lighter  or 
graver  departments."  She  did  not  hesitate  to  sacri 
fice  her  literary  prospects  on  the  altar  of  Abolition, 
and  at  the  cost  of  fame  and  fortune  lent  her  wizzard 
pen  to  the  slave  until  he  ceased  to  need  it.1  Mrs. 
Child  made  the  splendid  beginning  of  an  Anti-Slavery 
literature  in  her  famous  "  Appeal  in  Favor  of  that 
Class  of  Americans  called  Africans,"  a  book  fit  to 

"...  Create  a  soul 
Under  the  ribs  of  death  ;"2 

and  which  worked  that  miracle  in  thousands  of  cases, 
Wendell  Phillips  being  one.3 

The  other  of  these  bas-relief  women  was  Maria 
Weston  Chapman,  the  wife  of  Henry  G.  Chapman, 
and  the  cousin  by  marriage  of  Mrs.  Wendell  Phil 
lips.  Of  Mayflower  lineage,  dowered  with  woman's 
chief  charm  and  snare — beauty — to  which  she  added 
a  rare  intellect,  which  Europe  had  cultivated,  she 
was  the  idol  of  the  most  exclusive  circles  and  seemed 
certain  to  be  a  queen  of  fashion.  When  she  espoused 
the  righteous,  but  unpopular  cause  of  the  negro  great 
was  the  amazement,  unutterable  the  disgust  of  Bos 
ton.  She  at  once  made  herself  the  alter  ego  of  Mr. 
Garrison. 


1  This  noble  and  gifted  woman  died  in  1880. 

2  Milton's  "  Samson  Agonistes,"  line  560. 

3  Mr.  Phillips  had  his  attention  called  to  slavery  by  the  "  Appeal," 
before  he  openly  espoused  the  Anti  Slavery  cause.     This  was  one  of 
his  awakeners  ;  so  says  Mrs.  Alford  in  her  sketch  of  Mrs.  Phillips. 
Vide  p.  4. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  Ill 

As  a  writer  she  was  only  less  gifted  than  Mrs. 
Child,  and  knowing  the  value  of  printers'  ink,  she 
published  her  thoughts  in  prose  and  verse.  Wise  in 
counsel  and  fertile  in  resources,  she  suggested  ways 
and  means  in  the  darkest  hours.  Her  graces  of 
person  and  gifts  of  mind  were  exerted  in  unfriendly 
coteries  to  conciliate  and  attract,  and  always  with  a 
single  object — the  downfall  of  slavery.  Lowell  has 
hvmned  it  all  in  five  lines  of  poetic  photography  : 

*'  A  noble  woman,  brave  and  apt, 
Cumse's  sibyl  not  more  rapt, 
Who  might,  with  those  fair  tresses  shorn, 
The  Maid  of  Orleans'  casque  have  vvorn — 
Herself  the  Joan  of  our  Arc."  ' 

Surely,  let  Mrs.  Gruncly  sneer  as  she  might,  Wen 
dell  Phillips,  among  these  high  souls,  was  not  in  the 
way  greatly  to  miss  estranged  associates,  who  cut  his 
acquaintance  when  he  avowed  himself  the  "  friend  of 
niggers. ' '  Such  companionship  was  a  moral  tonic. 
Such  a  life-purpose  fired  his  soul  with  generous  as 
pirations.  The  service  of  God  through  the  uplifting 
of  man  raised  him  above  the  frivolities  which  make 
the  main  business  of  what  calls  itself  Society,  freed 
him  from  the  thraldom  of  petty  pursuits,  yardstick 
measurements  and  the  selfish  dicker  in  cotton  and 
corn,  and  flashed  a  divine  meaning  into  human  life. 
As  an  intellectual  stimulus  and  spiritual  safeguard 
his  new  career  was  worth  all  he  paid  for  it.  Men 
unconsciously  aggrandize  themselves  when  they 
imitate  the  Christ. 

How  did  this  magnificent  band,  smaller  than  Gid 
eon's  army  after  it  had  been  twice  weeded,  opposed 


1  Mrs.  Chapman  died  in  1885. 


112  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

to  every  element  that  was  potent  in  America,  to 
State  and  Church,  to  trade  and  society,  to  law  and 
learning,  to  politics  and  art,  propose  to  fight  their 
battle  ?  They  deliberately  chose  the  Christian  meth 
ods.  They  distinctly  disavowed  carnal  weapons  and 
adopted  moral  suasion.  They  believed  in  reason, 
not  passion  ;  in  conscience,  not  force  ;  in  ideas,  not 
bullets.  In  the  preamble  to  the  constitution  of  the 
"  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society"  we  find  a 
statement  of  their  principles  : 

41  We,  the  undersigned,  hold  that  every  person,  of  full  age 
and  sane  mind,  has  a  right  to  immediate  freedom  from  personal 
bondage  of  whatsoever  kind  unless  imposed  by  the  sentence  of 
the  law  for  the  commission  of  some  crime.  We  hold  that  man 
cannot,  consistently  with  reason,  religion,  and  the  eternal  and 
immutable  principles  of  justice,  be  the  property  of  man.  We 
hold  that  whoever  retains  his  fellowman  in  bondage  is  guilty  of 
a  grievous  wrong.  We  hold  that  mere  difference  of  complexion 
is  no  reason  why  any  man  should  be  deprived  of  any  of  his 
natural  rights,  or  subjected  to  any  political  disability.  While 
we  advance  these  opinions  as  the  principles  on  which  we  intend 
to  act,  we  declare  that  we  will  not  operate  on  the  existing  rela 
tions  of  society  by  other  than  peaceful  and  lawful  means,  and 
that  we  will  give  no  countenance  to  violence  or  insurrection."  ! 

In  the  constitution  of  the  "  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society"  these  principles  reappear  in  another  form  : 

"ARTICLE  Two.— The  object  of  this  Society  is  the  entire 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States.  While  it  admits  that 
each  State  in  which  slavery  exists  has,  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  the  exclusive  right  to  legislate  in  regard  to  its 
abolition  in  said  State,  it  shall  aim  to  convince  all  our  fellow- 
citizens,  by  arguments  addressed  to  their  understandings  and 
consciences,  that  slave-holding  is  a  heinous  crime  in  the  sight 
of  God,  and  that  the  duty,  safety,  and  the  best  interests  of  all 


"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  85. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  113 

concerned  require  its  immediate  abandonment,  without  expatria 
tion.  The  Society  will  also  endeavor,  in  a  constitutional  way, 
to  influence  Congress  to  put  an  end  to  the  domestic  slave  trade, 
and  to  abolish  slavery  in  all  those  portions  of  our  common 
country  which  come  under  its  control,  especially  in  the  District 
of  Columbia — and  likewise  to  prevent  the  extension  of  it  to  any 
State  that  may  be  hereafter  admitted  to  the  Union.1 

"  ARTICLE  THREE.— This  Society  shall  aim  to  elevate  the 
character  and  the  condition  of  the  people  of  color,  by  encourag 
ing  their  intellectual,  moral,  and  religious  improvement,  and  by 
removing  public  prejudice,  that  thus  they  may,  according  to 
their  intellectual  and  moral  worth,  share  an  equality  with  the 
whites  of  civil  and  religious  privileges  ;  but  this  Society  will 
never,  in  any  way,  countenance  the  oppressed  in  vindicating 
their  rights  by  resorting  to  physical  force."  2 

These  were  the  earliest  organizations.  The  great 
family  of  similar  bodies  domiciled  throughout  the 
free  States  reproduced  these  distinctive  features  of 
their  parents  as  one  after  the  other  they  were  born. 

Mr.  Garrison  was  a  non-resistant,  as  were  many 
of  his  followers.  Mr.  Phillips  was  not.  But  he 
fully  adopted  the  measures  in  vogue  when  he  came 
into  the  movement,  and  his  efforts  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  were  exerted  persistently  and  consistently 
on  the  moral  suasion  platform,  though  when  the  war 
broke  out  he  gave  it  a  hearty  support — all  the  more 
hearty  because  of  his  long  moral  advocacy. 

Throughout  this  period  the  indictment  of  the 
Abolitionists  had  two  contradictory  counts.  The 
slave-holders  charged  them  with  attempting  to  stir 
insurrection.  Those  who  professed  to  abhor  slavery, 
but  who  excused  themselves  from  moving  against  it, 
accused  them  of  impracticability.  They  answered 


1  The  ultimate  purpose  of  the  Free  Soil  and  Republican  parties. 

2  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  i.,  p.  414. 


114  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

the  charge  of  sedition  by  pointing  to  their  standards 
of  faith  and  practice.  They  responded  to  the  ac 
cusation  of  impracticability  by  proving  that  they  were 
acting  under  the  inspiration  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  that 
they  were,  therefore,  just  as  practical  as  the  genius 
of  His  system  would  permit  them  to  be.  Did  the 
Master  preach  immediate  repentance  ?  So  did  they 
preach  immediate  emancipation.  Was  it  within  the 
power  of  a  sinner  to  let  go  of  his  sin  ?  So  was  it 
within  the  power  of  a  slave-holder  to  free  his  slaves. 

Moreover,  as  a  further  and  triumphant  reply  to 
this  assertion  that  they  were  impracticables,  they 
called  attention  to  the  recent  success  of  the  English 
Abolitionists,  who,  on  the  same  basis,  had  assailed 
and  at  length  abolished  slavery  in  the  British  West 
Indies.1  Why  was  not  what  had  been  practicable 
there,  after  years  of  agitation,  equally  practicable 
here  ?  Were  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce,  Buxton  and 
Macaulay,  Brougham  and  O'Connell  hotheads? 
Then  they;  too,  were  content  to  be  known  as  fanat 
ics.  Was  there  any  peculiarity  in  the  American 
moral  climate  which  could  hocus-pocus  success  in 
Palestine  and  triumph  in  England  and  the  West  In 
dies  into  failure  in  the  United  States  ?  Why  should 
what  was  acknowledged  to  be  statesmanship  on  one 
side  of  the  Atlantic  become  fanaticism  on  this  side  ? 
The  Abolitionists  waited  long  for  an  answer  to  these 
questions.  Those  who  survive  are  waiting  still. 

Not  at  once  did  Mr.  Phillips  devote  his  whole 
time  and  attention  to  Abolition.  He  attended  to 
what  law  business  the  Faneuil  Hall  meeting  had  left 
in  his  hands.  Now,  too,  he  commenced  his  wonder- 


On  August  ist,  1834,  800,000  slaves  were  set  free. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  I  15 

ful  career  as  a  public  lecturer.  From  the  moment 
he  entered  this  field  he  was  in  continental  demand. 
His  literary  productions,  especially,  were  eagerly 
sought  ;  each  new  lecture  was  an  event.  These  he 
valued  as  so  many  introductions  to  audiences  which 
would  not  permit  him  to  discuss  slavery  at  first,  but 
which,  once  under  the  spell  of  the  magician,  gave 
him  carte  blanche.  Hence  he  kept  constantly  on  hand 
an  assortment  of  lectures  on  science,  of  which  he 
was  fond,  and  biography  (a  department  in  which  he 
was  an  adept),  and  through  these  won  a  hearing  for 
the  cause  which  lay  nearest  his  heart.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  he  was  led  to  prepare  his  famous  lecture 
on  "  The  Lost  Arts."  '  He  began  to  deliver  it  in 
1838.  Thenceforth  and  for  forty-five  years  he  gave 
it  again  and  again — over  two  thousand  times  in  all — 
to  fascinated  crowds  from  Portland  to  St.  Louis, 
until  it  netted  him  $150,000,  the  largest  sum  ever 
earned  by  a  similar  production.2 

The  boards  of  the  Lyceum  he  continued  to  tread 
through  life.  But  by  and  by  he  made  the  Lyceum 
an  Anti-Slavery  rostrum,  and  the  movement  ab 
sorbed  him. 


1  This  is  given  in  full  in  the  Appendix. 

2  So  he  informed  the  writer  in  1883. 


II. 

A   CONUNDRUM. 

WOMAN  is  a  conundrum  which  man  is  unwilling"  to 
give  up.  We  write  her  with  an  interrogation  mark. 
Mrs.  Mary  A.  Livermore  used  to  deliver  an  enter 
taining  lecture  entitled  "  W^hat  shall  we  do  with 
our  Daughters  ?"  'Tis  a  serious  question  even  now. 
Fifty  years  ago  it  was  a  hopeless  question.  It  might 
have  been  reversed  and  put  in  this  form  :  "  What 
will  our  daughters  do  with  us  ?" 

Woman  has  always  been  the  power  behind  the 
throne.  There  has  been  the  difficulty.  She  has 
been  behind  it  when  she  should  have  been  on  it. 
Hers  has  been  power  without  the  sobering  sense  of 
responsibility.  She  has  had  her  way  ;  but  in  order 
to  get  it  she  has  been  obliged  to  cheat  her  male  be 
longings  into  thinking  they  were  having  theirs.  It 
has  been  finesse  against  force — the  fox  against  the 
Hon.  In  such  a  role  there  is  no  dignity  and  little 
credit.  We  have  shut  woman  up  in  a  doll- world, 
and  then  complained  of  her  frivolity.  '  Why  are 
you  women  such  fools  ?"  queried  a  crusty  benedict. 
'  I  suppose,"  was  the  quick  reply  of  the  bright 
woman  he  addressed,  "it  is  because  God  made  us 
to  match  the  men  !" 

As  soon  as  the  various  Anti-Slavery  societies, 
which  now  began  to  abound,  were  organized,  they 
were  confronted  by  a  perplexity  nearer  and  more 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  I  I/ 

exacting-  than  slavery  itself — woman  !  The  ladies 
composed  two  thirds  of  the  membership  and  did 
three  fourths  of  the  work.  Yet  when  it  came  to  the 
election  of  officers  and  the  shaping  of  policies  they 
had  no  vote  and  no  voice.  Some  of  them  resented 
this.  They  insisted  upon  recognition  as  an  act  of 
justice  to  themselves  on  the  part  of  societies  pledged 
to  win  justice  for  others.  They  wanted  to  help  in  the 
choice  of  their  leaders.  They  desired  to  share  in 
the  maturing  of  measures  and  methods.  A  few  went 
further — they  wished  to  go  out  and  tell  the  com 
munity,  as  only  women  could,  about  the  horrors  of 
slavery,  and  to  do  this  with  the  sanction  and  under 
the  seal  of  one  and  another  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
societies. 

Well,  these  demands  made  a  great  ado.  Oriental 
notions  then  prevailed  regarding  woman's  seclusion. 
The  Shah  of  Persia  would  not  have  been  more 
shocked  by  a  protest  on  the  part  of  one  of  his  wives 
against  plural  marriage  than  were  some  of  the  Aboli 
tionists  by  such  unheard-of  claims.  They  were  pro 
nounced  "unwomanly"  and  4<  unsexing."  Nowa 
days  it  is  laughable.  But  let  us  remember  that  those 
ladies  by  their  persistence  made  the  happy  social 
change  which  gives  us  the  right  to  laugh. .  They 
fought  their  battle  bravely.  They  acknowledged 
their  sex  to  be  miraculously  able,  but  said  they  did 
not  go  so  far  as  to  hold  that  one  whom  God  had 
made  a  woman  could  make  herself  anything  else. 
They  begged  to  be  informed  why  it  was  en  regie  for 
a  woman  to  act  on  the  stage  and  sing  in  public,  but 
unwomanly  for  her  to  sit  with  men  on  committees 
and  talk  to  a  mixed  company  from  the  platform  ? 
Yet  many  of  those  who  held  up  their  hands  in  hor- 


IlS  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ror  at  the  thought  of  this  proposed  outrage  upon 
propriety,  paid  fabulous  prices  to  hear  Jenny  Lind 
sing  and  to  see  Rachel  act. 

It  is  a  suggestive  fact  that  an  effort  at  reform  in 
one  direction  surely  discloses  the  need  of  reform  in 
other  directions,  and  at  the  same  time  educates 
some  who  have  acted  in  that  one  line  to  move  in 
those  other  lines  of  amelioration.  Thus  it  was  that 
the  crusade  against  slavery  inevitably  led  first  to  the 
movement  in  behalf  of  woman  and  then  to  the  move 
ment  in  behalf  of  labor.  For  numbers  of  the  reform 
ers,  their  attention  having  been  called  to  it,  saw  at 
once  the  reasonableness  of  the  women's  claim,  and 
conceded  it,  Mr.  Phillips  among  the  foremost.  In 
the  matter  of  rights  he  could  see  no  difference  be 
tween  a  coat  and  a  petticoat.  Nor  was  he  much  dis 
turbed  when  certain  of  the  brethren  assured  him 
that  the  Bible  had  closed  woman's  mouth — in  con 
ventions — with  a  seal  which  bore  the  imprint  of  St. 
Paul.  That  bugaboo  had  been  paraded  so  often  in 
the  case  of  slavery,  through  allusions  to  Abraham 
and  Onesimus,  it  could  no  longer  scare.  "  Since 
woman,"  said  Mr.  Phillips,  "is  interested  equally 
with  man  in  righting  the  wrongs  of  slavery  ;  since 
among  the  blacks  she  suffers  vitally  as  wife  and 
mother,  as  daughter  and  sister,  just  as  he  does  as  hus 
band  and  father,  as  son  and  brother ;  why  is  she  not 
entitled  to  utter  her  indignation  anywhere,  every 
where,  and  most  of  all  in  Anti-Slavery  committee- 
rooms  and  upon  Anti-Slavery  platforms  ?"  ' 

This  burning  issue  did  not  come  up  as  an  abstract 
question,  but  in  an  actual  case.  A  couple  of  heroic 


So  he  writes  in  a  letter  to  Arthur  Tappan,  in  1838  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  IIQ 

women,  the  sisters  Sarah  and  Angelina  Grimke, 
daughters  of  a  celebrated  jurist  of  South  Carolina, 
Judge  John  F.  Grimke,  no  longer  able  to  endure  the 
horrors  they  witnessed  in  the  house  of  bondage, 
shook  off  the  dust  from  their  feet  against  their  native 
State  and  made  a  home  in  Philadelphia.  They  had 
been  members  of  the  Episcopal  communion.  Find 
ing  it  a  hot-bed  of  Pro-Slavery  sentiment,  they  came 
out  again  and  united  with  the  orthodox  Quakers. 
Soon  they  began  a  house-to-house  canvass  among 
their  own  sex  in  the  interest  of  Abolition.  Their 
words  were  so  incisive,  their  impeachment  of  slavery 
was  so  tremendous,  their  story  of  its  immoralities 
was  so  pathetic,  that  the  women  who  heard  them 
were  deeply  moved.  Presently  the  men,  hearing  of 
their  successful  advocacy,  began  to  clamor  for  ad 
mission  to  these  conferences,  for  women  have  no 
monopoly  of  curiosity.  The  surest  way  to  attract  a 
man  anywhither  is  to  bar  him  out — especially  if 
women  are  barred  in  !  Erelong,  therefore,  there 
was  a  demand  for  the  public  appearance  of  the  Misses 
Grimke.  Being  Quakeresses  they  had  no  objection 
to  a  promiscuous  audience.  Accordingly,  under 
the  auspices  of  the  various  Anti-Slavery  societies, 
they  began  to  discuss  slavery  in  public  ;  always  to 
the  conviction  and  conversion  of  those  who  listened. 
Indeed,  they  proved  to  be  the  most  effective  of 
speakers.1 

Marking  this,  the  conservatives  made  haste  to  do 
two  things  :  First,  to  shut  in  their  faces  the  doors  of 
every  church  which  they  controlled— the  vast  ma 
jority  ;  and,  secondly,  to  fulminate  against  them  a 


1  Johnson's  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  261. 


120  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Protestant  "bull,"  in  which  the  faithful  were  ex 
horted  not  to  countenance  such  caricatures  upon 
true  womanhood. 

This  "bull,"  which  appeared  in  the  summer  of 
1837,'  called  forth  from  Whittier  one  of  his  most 
pungent  lyrics  : 

"So  this  is  all — the  utmost  reach 

Of  priestly  power  the  mind  to  fetter  ! 
When  laymen  think,  when  women  preach, 

A  'War  of  Words  '—a  pastoral  letter. 
But  ye  who  scorn  the  thrilling  tale 

Of  Carolina's  high-souled  daughters, 
Which  echoes  here  the  mournful  wail 

Of  sorrow  from  Edisto's  waters, 
Close  while  ye  may  the  public  ear, 

With  malice  vex,  with  slander  wound  them  ; 
The  pure  and  good  shall  throng  to  hear, 

And  tried  and  manly  hearts  surround  them."  2 

These  last  lines  were  prophetic.  For  the  measures 
taken  to  suppress  only  enlarged  their  meetings.3 
Other  women  began  to  exhort.  More  and  more 
were  the  Anti-Slavery  societies  called  upon  to  ac 
cord  to  the  women  the  privileges  enjoyed  by  men. 
More  and  more  did  Mr.  Phillips  insist  that  this  be 
done  ;  in  which  Mr.  Garrison  and  many  others  joined 
him.  *  The  debate  was  hot.  In  various  instances  the 
rights  demanded  were  accorded. 


1  This  was  the  utterance  of  the  General  Association  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  orthodox  churches,  in  session  at  Brookfield,  which  met  June 
27th.     The  paper  was  drawn  up  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Nehemiah  Adams, 
of  Boston,  who  soon  earned  for  himself,  by  his  truckling  to  the  slave 
power,  the  sobriquet  of  "  Southside  Adams." 

2  "  Whittier's  Poems,  'The  Pastoral  Letter.' "     Diamond  edition, 
p.  70. 

3  Angelina  Grimke  was  married  to  Theodore  D.   Weld  in   1838. 
She  died  some  years  ago.    Sarah  died  earlier. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  121 

Reference  is  here  made  to  this  issue  and  to  Mr. 
Phillips's  position  on  it,  because  it  belongs  here  in 
point  of  time  ;  because  soon  afterward  it  divided  the 
Abolitionists  into  two  camps  ;  and  because  in  Eng 
land  and  at  home  our  knight-errant  of  freedom  was 
to  break  many  a  gallant  lance  as  the  champion  of  the 
ladies. 


III. 

"VALE." 

BOSTON  has  always  been  celebrated  as  an  intellec 
tual  headquarters.  It  was  markedly  so  when  Wen 
dell  Phillips  was  young.  There  was  then  a  circle  of 
wide-awakes  meeting  at  irregular  intervals  under 
the  name  of  "  The  Friends,"  usually  in  the  palatial 
apartments  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Phillips,  a  wealthy 
bachelor,  who  resided  at  the  Tremont  House,  that 
relative  of  the  orator  who  had  presided  over  the 
gathering  in  Faneuil  Hall  where  he  spoke,  and,  like 
Byron,  awoke  the  next  morning  to  find  himself 
famous.  In  this  conclave  the  wits  of  the  day  were 
wont  to  discuss  living  questions  of  all  sorts.1  Here 
Dr.  Charming  might  surely  be  found,  and  Bronson 
Alcott,  a  gentle  philosopher  with  an  orthodox  train 
ing  and  a  heterodox  slant,  and  Theodore  Parker, 
already  known  as  an  heresiarch,  whose  acquaintance 
Mr.  Phillips  thus  early  made  at  one  of  these  sym 
posiums,  for  the  young  lawyer  was  another  of  the 
"  Friends."  What  hairs  did  they  split  !  What  fine 
distinctions  between  tweedle-dum  and  tweedle-dee  ! 
Mr.  Phillips  used  to  refer  to  it  all  as  a  rare  school  of 
dialectics.  No  doubt  he  often  took  occasion  to  re 
mind  the  circle  that  inequity  should  properly  be 
spelled  iniquity. 


"  Life  of  Theodore  Parker,"  by  O.  B.  Frothingham,  p.  96. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  123 

Early  in  1839  ne  was  made  General  Agent  of  the 
Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society,  of  which  Fran 
cis  Jackson  was  the  President  and  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  was  the  Corresponding  Secretary.  Into 
this  work  Mr.  Phillips  threw  himself  with  the  ardor 
of  an  enthusiast  and  the  success  of  a  man  of  affairs. 
He  organized  a  school-house  campaign,  held  meet 
ings  from  the  sands  of  Cape  Cod  to  the  hills  of  Berk 
shire,  made  every  cross-roads  a  hustings,  created  lec 
turers  by  the  score,  and  set  on  two  feet  a  protean 
discussion.  He  spoke  himself  here,  there,  and  yon 
der,  and  became  ubiquitous.  He  hung  out  a  new 
lantern  and  started  another  Paul  Revere's  ride,  to 
give  warning  of  a  more  dangerous  invasion  than  the 
old  one  by  the  redcoats.  Soon  he  had  the  State 
agog,  this  aristocrat  turned  democrat  who  was  not 
yet  thirty  !  ' 

To  the  perturbations  of  his  official  position  (which 
he  held  without  pecuniary  recompense)2  he  added, 
in  these  early  years  of  his  married  life,  an  increasing 
anxiety  for  his  wife.  She  grew  frail  apace.  The 
cradle  of  their  happiness  seemed  destined  to  be  its 
grave.  As  a  dernier  ressort  the  nonplussed  physi 
cians  advised  a  European  trip.  Mr.  Phillips's  family 
eagerly  coincided,  hoping  that  time  and  distance 
might  cure  him  of  his  "  fanaticism"  and  her  of  her 
ailment.  The  thought  of  withdrawal,  even  for  a 
time,  was  a  cross  to  both.  Their  hearts  were  at  one 
in  the  Anti-Slavery  crusade.  But  health  and  strength 
might  come  from  the  tonic  of  new  scenes  and  experi 
ences,  and  so  long  years  of  usefulness.  The  unpalata 
ble  medicine  was  worth  a  trial.  They  decided  to  obey. 


Vide  Liberator •,  vol.  ix.,  p.  95.  8  Ib. 


124  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

At  this  moment  the  annual  meeting  of  the  New 
England  Anti-Slavery  Society  was  held,  the  place 
being  Boston,  and  the  date  May  3Oth,  1839.  The 
Convention  unanimously  adopted  a  series  of  resolu 
tions  referring  in  warm  terms  to  Mr.  Phillips's  unself 
ish  labors,  and  recommending  him  to  the  hospitality 
and  confidence  of  Abolitionists  on  the  other  side  of 
the  water,  as  "  a  devoted,  uncompromising  and 
eloquent  friend  of  the  slave."  ' 

After  listening  to  this  tribute  he  ascended  the  plat 
form,  evidently  much  affected,  and  was  received 
with  round  on  round  of  hearty  plaudits.  Speaking 
with  emotion,  he  said  : 

"  I  thank  you  for  your  vote.  I  feel  my  responsibility  as  your 
representative  abroad.  I  trust  in  the  opinion  of  the  civilized 
world  whose  thunder  tones  are  beginning  even  now  to  sweep 
over  the  Atlantic,  in  the  power  of  Christendom,  awake,  united, 
indignant,  speaking  in  the  voice  of  our  fatherland  and  echoed 
by  gallant  and  beautiful  France.  England  has  solved  the  '  vexed 
question,'  and  proved  that  emancipation  is  both  safe  and  expe 
dient,  and  has  written  that  demonstration  in  letters  emblazoned 
in  lines  of  light 

1  On  the  blue  vault  of  heaven, 
'Twixt  Orion  and  the  Pleiades.' 

"  The  Germans  call  enthusiasm  Schwdrmerei,  as  if  its  origin 
were  amid  a  swarm  or  assembly  of  people.  Let  us  rather  keep 
to  the  old  Greek  definition — the  God  within  us — and  go  hence 
to  work  as  earnestly  as  we  have  felt  in  this  crowded  Conven 
tion."  * 

As  Mr.  Phillips  resumed  his  seat  the  convention 
broke  forth  in  a  tornado  of  cheers. 

Soon  after  this  valedictory  address  the  managers  of 


1  Liberator,  vol.  ix.,  2d  week  in  June.  2  //>. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  125 

the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society  bade  him  an 
affectionate  and  appreciative  farewell  in  an  open 
letter,  which  recited  in  detail  his  birth,  sacrifices, 
talents,  and  services,  and  commended  him  to  the 
friends  of  humanity  everywhere.  These  references 
were  followed  by  a  remarkable  summing-  up  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  progress  within  a  decade  : 

"  Ten  years  ago  a  solitary  individual  stood  up  as 
the  advocate  of  immediate  arid  unconditional  eman 
cipation.  Now,  that  individual  sees  about  him  hun 
dreds  of  thousands  of  persons,  of  both  sexes,  mem 
bers  of  every  sect  and  party,  from  the  most  elevated 
to  the  humblest  rank  in  life.  In  1829  not  an  Anti- 
Slavery  society  of  a  genuine  stamp  was  in  exist 
ence.  In  1839  there  are  nearly  two  thousand  such 
societies  swarming-  and  multiplying  in  all  parts  of 
the  free  States.  In  1829  there  was  but  one  Anti- 
Slavery  periodical  in  the  land.  In  1839  there  are 
fourteen.  In  1829  there  was  scarcely  a  newspaper 
of  any  religious  or  political  party  which  was  willing 
to  disturb  the  '  delicate  '  question  of  slavery.  In 
1839  there  are  multitudes  of  journals  that  either 
openly  advocate  the  doctrine  of  immediate  and  un 
conditional  emancipation,  or  permit  its  free  discus 
sion  in  their  columns.  Then,  scarcely  a  church  made 
slave-holding  a  bar  to  communion.  Now,  multitudes 
refuse  to  hear  a  slave-holder  preach,  or  to  recognize 
one  as  a  brother.  Then,  no  one  petitioned  Congress 
to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
Now,  in  one  day,  a  single  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  (John  Quincy  Adams)  has  presented 
one  hundred  and  seventy-six  such  petitions  in  de 
tail  ;  while  not  less  than  seven  hundred  thousand 
persons  have  memorialized  Congress  on  that  and 


126  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

kindred  subjects.  .  .  .  Tell  our  British  brethren  that 
the  apathy  which  once  brooded  over  the  land  like 
the  spell  of  death  is  broken  forever." 

Accompanied  by  these  good  wishes  and  with  such 
credentials,  the  Phillipses  said  good-by  to  their 
country  with  tolerable  composure,  and  set  sail  from 
New  York  for  London  in  the  packet  "  Wellington"  on 
June  6th,  1839.*  No  steam,  no  electric  lights,  no 
hotels  afloat  at  that  time.  But  the  * '  Wellington"  was 
the  best  ship  up  to  date  on  the  vast  ferry  between 
the  continents.  Hence  our  travellers  esteemed 
themselves  fortunate  in  securing  a  passage  on  her  ; 
and  were  so,  for  she  carried  them  safely,  and  con 
quered  Neptune  as  her  namesake  did  Napoleon. 


Liberator,  vol.  ix.,  p.  95.  *  Ib. 


IV. 

SCENES  AND   EXPERIENCES   IN    EUROPE. 

THE  two  Bostonians  reached  London  in  July. 
Here  they  tarried  only  long  enough  to  take  their 
sea-legs  off  arid  put  their  land-legs  on.  Their  pur 
pose  was  to  pass  the  approaching  winter  in  Rome 
and  to  return  to  Great  Britain  for  the  summer  of 
1840.  Hence  they  did  not  regret  the  hasty  exit, 
but  realized  the  need  of  "  movin'  on,"  like  poor  Joe 
in  Dickens's  story,  since  the  long  journey  on  the 
Continent  must  be  made  by  easy  stages  and  in  the 
clumsy  diligence,  which  represented  the  rapid  transit 
of  the  period.  In  September  they  were  in  Lyons, 
whither  they  went  from  Paris  en  route  for  Italy. 
Before  the  snows  fell  they  were  in  the  Eternal  City, 
whence  Mr.  Phillips  wrote,  under  date  of  January 
5th,  1840,  to  a  relative  at  home  : 

"  It  seems  useless  to  catalogue  interesting  objects,  so  numer 
ous  are  they  here  ;  yet  catalogues  are  more  eloquent  than  de 
scriptions.  The  Caesars'  palace  speaks  for,  itself.  To  stand  in 
the  Pantheon,  on  which  Paul's  eyes  may  have  rested,  what  needs 
one  more  to  feel  ?  We  have  been  up  Trajan's  Pillar  by  the  very 
steps  the  old  Roman  feet  once  trod  ;  rode  over  the  pavement  on 
which  Constantine  entered  in  triumph  ;  seen  the  Colosseum 
(I  by  moonlight,  and  heard  the  dog  bay,  though  not  '  beyond 
the  Tiber  '  that  I  know  of)  ;  lost  ourselves  in  that 'little  world  of 
dazzling,  bewildering  beauty,  the  Vatican,  where  the  Laocoon 
breathes  in  never-ending  agony,  and  eternal  triumph  beams 
from  the  brow  of  the  Apollo.  We  have  dived  into  Titus's  baths 


128  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

and  the  half-buried  ruins  of  Nero's  '  golden  house,    where  the 
frescoes  are  blooming  and  fresh  after  eighteen  hundred  years."  l 

Amid  these  scenes  they  learned  that  a  World's 
Anti-Slavery  Convention  had  been  called  to  meet  in 
London,  June  I2th,  1840  ;  that  the  Massachusetts  and 
Pennsylvania  societies  had  accredited  a  number  of 
well-known  men  and  women  as  delegates,  themselves 
included,  and  that  they  were  expected  to  report  for 
duty  there  and  then.  Returning  to  England  they 
duly  reached  the  metropolis.  Their  letters  of  intro 
duction  were  an  "  open  sesame."  They  met  all  the 
high  mightinesses  of  the  day — the  Duchess  of  Sunder- 
land,  a  great  beauty  and  next  in  rank  to  the  Queen, 
her  daughter,  afterward  the  Duchess  of  Argyle, 
Lady  Byron,  wife  of  the  poet,  Lord  Brougham,  and, 
best  of  all,  Daniel  O'Connell,  the  Irish  liberator, 
between  whom  and  Mr.  Phillips  a  great  friendship 
sprang  up.  Now,  too,  the  Phillipses  first  met  George 
Thompson,  the  orator  of  the  West  Indian  emancipa 
tion,  who  had  been  publicly  crowned  in  the  House 
of  Commons  as  the  foremost  and  most  eloquent 
pleader  for  negro  liberty  in  England,2  but  whom 
America  had  scorned  and  sought  to  crucify,  when, 
on  the  invitation  of  Mr.  Garrison,  he  had  visited  us 
in  i834.3  The  meeting  between  these  two  was  cor 
dial.  Mr.-  Thompson  was  a  Scotsman,  a  resident  of 
Edinburgh,  a  wit  and  a  genius,  now  in  the  prime 
of  life.  "  Ann  and  I,"  said  Mr.  Phillips,  "  went 
laughing  through  England  and  Scotland  with  this 
prince  of  raconteurs.  One  of  his  stories,  especially, 


1  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  by  Mrs.  Alford,  p.  7. 

"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  134. 
;i  Jb.    Also  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  432~67- 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  1 29 

always  convulsed  us,  told  as  it  was  with  inimitable 
drollery  :  The  story  of  an  East  Indian  Rajah  who 
had  been  persuaded  to  take  a  seidlitz-powder  by 
some  wag,  and  to  take  it  in  sections,  swallowing  first 
the  contents  of  the  blue  paper  and  instantly  after 
ward  the  contents  of  the  white,  so  that  the  efferves 
cence  took  place  internally,  throwing  the  astounded 
Rajah  into  volcanic  eruption,  with  his  mouth  and 
nostrils  for  craters." 

In  attendance  upon  the  convention  were  a  couple 
of  Abolitionists  to  whom  they  were  instantly  drawn 
as  by  a  kinship  of  soul.  The  first  of  these  was  Miss 
Elizabeth  Pease,  a  young  Quaker  lady,  of  Darling 
ton,  England,  a  lovely  character,  in  whose  society 
they  spent  many  delightful  days,  and  \vith  whom 
they  continued  an  intimate  correspondence  for  years 
after  their  return  to  America.2  The  other  was 
Richard  D.  Webb,  of  Dublin,  a  rich  Quaker  printer, 
one  of  the  most  genial  and  witty  of  men,  whose  Irish 
blood  showed  itself,  spite  of  his  Quakerism,  in  an 
unconscious  and  irrepressible  love  for  a  "  scrim 
mage  ;"  as  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  he  struck 
off  on  his  presses  an  edition  of  non-resistant  pam 
phlets,  "  just  to  raise  a  little  bit  of  a  row  !" 

The  World's  Convention  opened  on  Friday,  June 
1 2th,  1840,  in  Freemason's  Hall,  with  five  hundred 
delegates  on  the  floor,4  many  of  them  Americans. 
In  the  preceding  year  the  British  and  Foreign  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  had  been  organized  by  an  eminent 


1  Letter  from  Mr.  Phillips  to  a  relative  (MS.). 

2  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  by  Mrs.  Alford,  p.  7. 

3  Quoted  from  a  letter  written  by  Richard    D.    Webb  to  George 
Thompson,  in  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  403. 

4  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  ii..  p.  367. 


130  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

member  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  Joseph  Sturge.1 
This  body  had  issued  a  call  for  a  General  Conference 
and  addressed  it  to  "  Friends  of  the  slave  of  every 
nation  and  of  every  clime."  2  Accordingly,  the  vari 
ous  American  societies  met  and  appointed  delegates. 
Pennsylvania  and  Massachusetts,  in  agreement  with 
their  recent  rules,  had,  as  we  have  stated,  sent  mixed 
delegations,  among  the  men,  William  Lloyd  Garri 
son,  Wendell  Phillips,  and  William  Adam,  Professor 
of  Oriental  Languages  at  Harvard  College  ;  among 
the  women,  Harriet  Martineau  (who,  though  an 
Englishwoman  and  a  non-resident  of  America,  was 
an  honorary  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  and  already  on  the  ground),  Mrs. 
Wendell  Phillips,  Mrs.  Henry  G.  Chapman,  and 
Lucretia  Mott,  by  odds  the  ablest  and  most  distin 
guished  Quakeress  in  the  world. 

These  ladies  were  now  in  London,  and  they  re 
quested  Wendell  Phillips  to  present  their  credentials. 
Upon  doing  so,  a  day  or  two  before  the  first  session 
of  the  Convention,  he  was  waved  off  to  the  Execu 
tive  Committee  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Society, 
which  had  assumed  authority  to  determine  who 
were  eligible  for  membership.  This  cabal  refused 
to  admit  women.  From  their  star-chamber  decision, 
Mr.  Phillips  appealed  to  the  convention  itself.  As 
soon,  therefore,  as  the  venerable  Thomas  Clarkson, 
the  father  of  the  West  India  emancipation,  who  pre 
sided,  had  concluded  his  address  of  greeting,  the 
young  American  rose  and  offered  this  resolution  : 

"  That  a  committee  of  five  be  appointed  to  prepare  a  correct 


1  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  ii.,  p.  352. 
8  Ib. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  13! 

list  of  the  members  of  this  Convention,  with  instruction  to  in 
clude  in  such  list  all  persons  bearing  credentials  from  any  Anti- 
Slavery  society." 

The  resolution  stirred  a  hubbub.  It  shifted  the 
question  as  to  who  should  and  who  should  not  be 
considered  as  delegates  from  the  committee-room  to 
the  Convention,  and  bluntly  put  the  decision  as  to 
whether  it  was  a  self-constituting  body  where  it  be 
longed,  with  the  body.  When  quiet  was  restored 
Mr.  Phillips,  calm,  debonair,  in  London  as  in  Boston, 
proceeded  to  argue  the  case  : 

"When  the  call  reached  America,  we  found  that  it  was  an 
invitation  to  the  '  friends  of  the  slaves  of  every  nation  and  of 
every  clime.'  Massachusetts  has  for  several  years  acted  on  the 
principle  of  admitting  women  to  an  equal  seat  with  men  in  the 
deliberate  bodies  of  Anti-Slavery  societies.  When  the  Massa 
chusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society  received  that  paper,  it  interpreted 
it,  as  was  its  duty,  in  its  broadest  and  most  liberal  sense.  We 
stand  here  in  consequence  of  your  invitation  ;  and,  knowing  our 
custom,  as  it  must  be  presumed  you  did,  we  had  a  right  to  inter 
pret  '  friends  of  the  slaves  '  to  include  women  as  well  as  men. 
In  such  circumstances  we  do  not  think  it  just  or  equitable  to 
that  State,  nor  to  America  in  general,  that  after  the  trouble,  the 
sacrifice,  the  self-devotion,  of  a  part  of  those  who  left  their 
families  and  kindred  and  occupations  in  their  own  land,  to  come 
three  thousand  miles  to  attend  this  World's  Convention,  they 
should  be  refused  a  place  in  its  deliberations."  l 

English  habits  and  customs  felt  outraged.  Women 
sitting  with  men  in  a  convention — shocking  !  They 
might  sit  together  at  home,  in  church,  at  theatres, 
in  the  ball-room,  at  a  concert,  in  the  public  convey 
ances,  anywhere,  everywhere,  except  in  a  conven 
tion.  In  the  interest  of  decency  and  in  the  interest 


1  "  The    Life   and   Times   of    Wendell    Phillips,"    by   George    L, 
Austin,  p.  97, 


132  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

of  harmony,  the  New  Englander  was  besought  on 
all  sides  to  withdraw  his  motion.  He  rose  again  and 
said  : 

"  I  would  merely  ask  whether  any  man  can  suppose  that  the 
delegates  from  Massachusetts  or  Pennsylvania  can  take  upon 
their  shoulders  the  responsibility  of  withdrawing  that  list  of 
delegates  from  your  table,  which  their  constituents  told  them 
to  place  there,  and  whom  they  sanctioned  as  their  fit  repre 
sentatives,  because  this  Convention  tells  us  that  it  is  not  ready 
to  meet  the  ridicule  of  the  morning  newspapers,  and  to  stand 
up  against  the  customs  of  England  ?  In  America  we  listen  to 
no  such  arguments.  If  we  had  done  so,  we  had  never  been 
here  as  Abolitionists.  It  is  the  custom  there  not  to  admit  colored 
men  into  respectable  society  ;  and  we  have  been  told  again  and 
again  that  we  are  outraging  the  decencies  of  humanity  when  we 
permit  colored  men  to  sit  by  our  side.  When  we  have  sub 
mitted  to  brickbats  and  the  tar-tub  and  feathers  in  New  England 
rather  than  yield  to  the  custom  prevalent  there  of  not  admitting 
colored  brethren  into  our  friendship,  shall  we  yield  to  parallel 
custom  or  prejudice  against  women  in  Old  England  ? 

"  We  cannot  yield  this  question  if  we  would,  for  it  is  a  matter 
of  conscience.  But  we  would  not  yield  it  on  the  ground  of  ex 
pediency.  In  doing  so,  we  should  feel  that  we  were  striking 
off  the  right  arm  of  our  enterprise.  We  could  not  go  back  to 
America  to  ask  for  any  aid  from  the  women  of  Massachusetts  if 
we  had  deserted  them  when  they  chose  to  send  out  their  own 
sisters  as  their  representatives  here  ;  we  could  not  go  back  to 
Massachusetts  and  assert  our  unchangeableness  of  spirit  on  the 
question.  We  have  argued  it  over  and  over  again,  and  decided 
it  time  after  time,  in  every  society  in  the  land,  in  favor  of  the 
women.  We  have  not  changed  by  crossing  the  water.  We 
stand  here  the  advocates  of  the  same  principle  that  we  contend 
for  in  America.  We  think  it  right  for  women  to  sit  by  our  side 
there  and  we  think  it  right  for  them  to  do  the  same  here.  We 
ask  the  Convention  to  admit  them  ;  if  they  do  not  choose  to 
grant  it,  the  responsibility  rests  on  their  shoulders.  Massa 
chusetts  cannot  turn  aside  or  succumb  to  any  prejudices  or  cus 
toms,  even  in  the  land  she  looks  upon  with  so  much  reverence 
as  the  land  of  Wilberforce,  of  Claikson,  and  of  O'Connell.  It 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  133 

is  a  matter  of  conscience,  and  British  virtue  ought  not  to  ask  us 

to  yield."  ' 

The  result  was  that,  after  a  gallant  struggle,  the 
ladies  were  denied  admission  to  the  floor  as  delegates 
and  shunted  off  into  the  galleries  as  spectators.2 
Negroes  were  admitted  ;  but  women,  gracious,  no  ! 
It  was  when  Mr.  Phillips  left  her  to  conduct  this 
case  that  Mrs.  Phillips  addressed  him  in  the  oft- 
quoted  words  : 

"  Wendell,  don't  shilly-shally."  3 

Well,  he  did  not.  And  though  immediately  de 
feated,  he  opened  then  and  there  the  broadest  and 
profoundest  of  all  agitations,  that  which  contem 
plates  the  emancipation  of  the  larger  and  better  half 
of  the  human  race.  The  World's  Convention  straight 
way  shrank  into  a  conclave  of  men — a  sex  conven 
tion.  It  was  its  ironical  fate  to  stand  rather  as  a 
landmark  in  the  history  of  woman's  rights  than  in 
that  of  Abolition.  * 

This  action  set  tongues  a-wagging  from  Land's 
End  to  John  o'Groat's  house  ;  yes,  and  across  the 
continent  of  America.  It  was  a  better  advertise 
ment  for  fair  play  than  a  dozen  unchallenged  admis 
sions  would  have  been. 

Unfortunately  Mr.  Garrison,  detained  by  storms 
on  the  ocean,  did  not  reach  London  until  the  Con 
vention  was  nearing  its  end.  When  he  arrived  he 
refused  to  enter  the  body,  and  took  his  place  yonder 
in  the  galleries  among  the  excluded  and  disfranchised 


1  "  Life  and  Times   of  Wendell  Phillips."  by  George  L.  Austin, 
pp.  98,  99- 

2  "  Life  and  Letters  of  J.  and  L.  Mott,"  in  loco. 

3  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  8 

4  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  5i.,  p.  381. 


134  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

delegates.     In  a  letter  to  the  Liberator  he  gives  his 
reason  : 

"  The  Convention  had  but  three  days  more  to  sit,  and  there 
fore  we  would  not  disturb  it  by  renewing  the  agitation  of  the 
subject  already  decided,  but  so  decided  as  to  prevent  us  also 
from  entering  without  renewing  its  discussion.  Another  reason 
was  that,  after  having  called  every  friend  of  the  oppressed  from 
all  parts  of  the  globe,  the  Convention  was  not  an  open  one,  but 
resolved  itself  into  a  delegated  body.  Another  was  that,  being 
a  delegated  body,  the  delegates  were  not  all  received.  Why, 
which  of  the  delegates  had  the  right  to  reject  the  rest  ?  As  well 
might  the  women  have  conspired  to  vote  out  the  men,  as  the 
men  have  undertaken  to  exclude  the  women."  l 

The  action  of  the  World's  Convention  was  pitiful  ; 
all  the  more  inexcusable  because  it  was,  in  its  incep 
tion,  and  largely  in  its  management,  a  Quaker  con 
ference,  and,  as  everybody  knows,  the  Quakers  have 
given  to  women  the  largest  recognition.  Now  they 
poured  contempt  upon  their  own  traditions  and  bor 
rowed  the  manners  of  the  "  world's  people." 

Two  names  stand  out  in  honorable  prominence 
upon  the  record.  They  are  the  names  of  two  Roman 
Catholics — one  the  foremost  priest  of  his  age,  the 
other  the  most  illustrious  layman  in  the  Pope's  com 
munion.  Father  Mathew,  the  great  apostle  of  tem 
perance,  who  revolutionized  Ireland  on  that  ques 
tion,  expressed  his  deep  regret  at  the  exclusion  of 
the  women  delegates.2  And  Daniel  O'Connell,  in 
a  letter  to  Lucretia  Mott,  dated  London,  June  2Oth, 
wrote  : 

"  I  readily  comply  with  your  request  to  give  my  opinion  as  to 
the  propriety  of  the  admission  of  the  female  delegates  into 
the  Convention. 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  x.,  p.  165.  *  /£.,  p.  139. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  135 

"  I  should  premise  by  avowing,  that  my  first  impression  was 
strong  against  that  admission  ;  and  I  believe  I  declared  that 
opinion  in  private  conversation.  But  when  I  was  called  upon 
by  you  to  give  my  personal  decision  on  the  subject  I  felt  it  my 
duty;to  investigate  the  grounds  of  the  opinion  I  had  formed  ; 
and  upon  that  investigation  I  easily  discovered  that  it  was 
founded  on  no  better  grounds  than  an  apprehension  of  the 
ridicule  it  might  excite,  if  the  Convention  were  to  do  what  is  so 
unusual  in  England — to  admit  women  to  an  equal  share  and 
right  of  discussion.  I  also,  without  difficulty,  recognized  that 
this  was  an  unworthy,  and,  indeed,  a  cowardly  motive,  and  I 
easily  overcame  its  influence. 

"  My  mature  consideration  of  the  entire  subject  convinces  me 
of  the  right  of  the  female  delegates  to  take  their  seats  in  the  Con 
vention,  and  of  the  injustice  of  excluding  them.  I  do  not  care 
to  add,  that  I  deem  it  also  impolitic  ;  because,  that  exclusion 
being  unjust,  it  ought  not  to  have  taken  place  even  if  it  could 
also  be  politic. 

"  I  have  a  consciousness  that  I  have  not  done  my  duty  in  not 
sooner  urging  these  considerations  on  the  Convention.  My  ex 
cuse  is,  that  I  was  unavoidably  absent  during  the  discussion  of 
the  subject  I"1 

For  their  part  in  the  Convention,  the  controlling 
spirits  sent  Messrs.  Phillips  and  Garrison  to  Coven 
try.  When  a  monster  meeting  was  held  in  Exeter 
Hall,  as  a  grand  finale,  neither  of  them  was  invited  to 
speak,  though  one  was  the  originator  and  the  other 
was  the  orator  par  excellence  of  the  Abolition  move 
ment  in  America.  Two  lesser  lights  represented 
this  country  on  the  platform  that  night  ;  while 
O'Connell  spoke,  as  only  he  could,  for  Europe, 
gathering  into  one  tremendous  thunder-tone  the  old 
world's  rebuke  of  the  recreant  Republic.  This  was 


1  Liberator,  vol.  x.,  p.  119.     Compare  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison," 
vol.  ii.,  p.  382. 


136  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

the  occasion  when  the  eloquent  Irishman  uttered  the 
sentence  which  Phillips  never  tired  of  repeating  : 

"  I  send  my  voice  across  the  Atlantic,  careering 
like  the  thunder-storm  against  the  breeze,  to  tell  the 
slave-holder  of  the  Carolinas  that  God's  thunder 
bolts  are  hot,  and  to  remind  the  bondman  that  the 
.dawn  of  his  redemption  is  already  breaking  !"  2 

In  commenting  upon  this,  Mr.  Phillips  said  : 
1  You  seemed  to  hear  the  tones  come  echoing  back 
to  London  from  the  Rocky  Mountains."  2 

He  went  with  Garrison  soon  after  to  call  on 
O'Connell.  The  Irishman  had  just  begun  to  agitate 
for  the  repeal  of  the  union  with  England.  He  was 
to  make  a  speech  that  night  in  the  House  of  Com 
mons  on  that  very  issue.  The  two  friends  intruded 
with  fear  and  trembling,  expecting  to  find  him  in  the 
throes  of  preparation.  On  the  contrary,  he  was 
stretched  upon  a  sofa  enjoying  one  of  Charles  Dick- 
ens's  novels  !  3  After  the  manner  of  great  minds  he 
sought  recreation  on  the  eve  of  conflict  and  left  his 
opponents  to  do  the  agony. 

The  Convention  adjourned  on  June  23d.4  There 
upon  social  enjoyments,  which  the  session  had  inter 
rupted,  resumed  their  sway.  It  was  here,  there,  or 
yonder  from  daybreak  to  midnight,  an  unceasing 
round  of  fetes  and  pleasures.  Into  them  Mrs.  Phil 
lips  entered  as  deeply  as  her  strength  would  allow, 


1  See  Phillips' s  lecture  on  O'Connell  in  the  Appendix  of  this  volume. 

2  Ib. 

3  For  one  interesting  parallel  case  the  reader  is  referred  to   Edward 
Everett's   account    of   Webster's   manner  the   night   previous   to  his 
crushing    response    to     Hayne.       Vide     Everett's     "  Orations     and 
Speeches,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  205. 

4  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  ii..  D.  373,  note. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  137 

and  often  when  she  was  spent  she  urged  her  devoted 
"  better  three-quarters,"  as  she  persisted  in  calling 
him,  to  go  and  represent  the  remaining  quarter, 
finding  it  difficult,  however,  to  enforce  obedience  in 
this  from  the  usually  submissive  husband.  What 
were  scenes  and  experiences  of  gayety  to  him  with 
her  absent  and  in  pain  ? 

Finding  that  the  social  pace  was  harmful  to  her, 
and  mindful  of  the  purpose  of  their  exile,  he  hurried 
off  with  her  against  the  protests  of  his  British  friends, 
and  in  July,  1840,  set  out,  by  way  of  Belgium  and 
the  Rhine,  for  Kissingen,  in  Bavaria,  in  the  vain 
hope  that  the  medicinal  waters  of  the  spa  would 
prove  beneficial.  In  a  letter  to  Miss  Elizabeth  Pease, 
written  from  Kissingen,  in  August,  he  gives  a  hint 
of  what  they  saw  : 

"  To  Americans  it  Was  especially  pleasant  to  see  at  Frankfort 
the  oldest  printed  Bible  in  the  world  and  two  pairs  of  Luther's 
shoes,  which  Ann  would  not  quit  sight  of  till  I  had  mustered 
German  enough  to  ask  the  man  to  let  the  '  little  girl  '  feel  of 
them.  So,  after  being  permitted  to  hold  the  great  man's  slippers 
in  her  own  hands,  the  man  watching  to  see  she  did  not  vanish 
with  them,  the  '  delegate  from  Massachusetts '  was  content  to 
leave  the  room.  But  she'll  speak  for  herself." 

Then,  in  the  same  letter,  Mrs.  Phillips  adds  : 

"  We  are  settled  down  in  this  quiet  little  village,  and  strange 
indeed  it  is  after  the  busy  London  hours.  How  much  we  en 
joyed  there  !  Even  I  have  a  world  to  look  back  upon,  though 
I  was  able  to  take  but  little  share  in  the  rich  feast  of  heart  and 
mind.  It  was  the  remark  of  the  great  physician  Hunter  that  he 
should  be  happy  through  eternity  if  God  would  but  let  him  muse 
upon  all  he  had  seen  and  learned  in  this  world.  So  what  a 
never-ending  store  of  recollections  you  will  have  in  this  visit 
from  those  you  have  so  long  known  (though  not  face  to  face). 
How  hallowed  will  be  to  you  the  memory  of  those  hours  of  com- 


138  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

munion  with  such  a   being  as  Garrison  !     I  thought  you  could 
not  but  love  him."  l 

As  Kissingen  did  not  answer  their  expectations, 
they  next  tried  Briickenau,  another  Bavarian  spa. 
Meeting  with  continued  disappointment,  they  de 
voted  the  autumn,  which  was  a  delightful  one,  to 
leisurely  travel  in  Switzerland  and  Northern  Italy. 
Leaving  Germany  ma  Heidelberg,  they  visited  in 
succession  the  Falls  of  the  Rhine,  Zurich,  Lucerne, 
Berne,  Interlaken  ("over  that  gem  of  a  lake  by 
Thun"),  the  Staubbach  and  Wengern  Alps,  and  Lau 
sanne,  and  in  October  they  crossed  the  Simplon  to 
Milan.2  On  reaching  Florence,  which  they  did'  in 
November,  Mr.  Phillips  wrote  : 

"  After  a  fortnight  of  glorious  weather,  we  came  hither  by 
Bologna,  that  jewel  of  a  city,  .  .  .  for  she  admits  women  to  be 
professors  in  her  university,  her  gallery  guards  their  paintings, 
her  palaces  boast  their  sculptures.  I  gloried  in  standing  beside 
a  woman-professor's  monument  set  up  side  by  side  with  that  of 
the  illustrious  Galvani."3 

At  the  same  time  he  wrote  an  interesting  descrip 
tive  letter  to  his  wife's  cousin  and  his  own  devoted 
friend,  Miss  Mary  Grew,  of  Philadelphia,  who  had 
been  among  the  rejected  delegates  at  the  World's 
Convention,  one  of  the  most  gifted  and  indefatigable 
of  the  Anti-Slavery  band  : 

"  FLORENCE,  ITALY,  November  19,  1840. 

"  DEAR  COUSIN  :  I  have  remembered  well  my  promise  to 
write  to  you,  but  a  thousand  things  have  pushed  the  August 
which  should  have  been  into  the  November  which  stares  at  me 
rather  reproachfully  from  my  dating.  This,  however,  is  not  the 
only  plan  for  this  second  year  abroad  which  has  not  come  to 


"  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  9.  2  Ib.\  p.  10.  3  Ib. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  139 

reality  ;  and,  though  we  are  very  happy,  and  mean  to  be  under 
all  circumstances,  still,  when  we  look  back  on  all  the  things  we 
meant  to  do — sights  to  see,  scenes  to  explore,  curiosities  to  gloat 
over,  we  feel  something  as  Johnson  did  when,  after  printing  the 
glorious  plan  he  had  at  first  drawn  for  his  dictionary,  he  ludi 
crously  says,  '  Such  were  the  dreams  of  a  poet  destined  to  awake 
a  lexicographer.' 

"  We  had  dreamed  of  seeing  all  the  Alps,  Chamouni,  climb 
ing  hundreds  of  hills,  roaming  over  the  Simplon  and  the  Spliigen 
and  lakes  innumerable,  being  drenched  in  the  mist  of  every 
waterfall  which  boasts  a  name,  and  topping  off  with  Venice — 
half-Eastern,  half-Gothic,  and  all  romance.  But  such  were  the 
dreams  of  a  traveller  destined  to  awake  an  invalid.1  I'll  not 
stop  to  tell  you  of  the  London  days  after  you  left  us.  You  shall 
go  on  board  with  us  and  sail  over  that  rough,  chopping  Channel 
to  Ostend  ;  passing  mournfully,  because  too  rapidly,  by  those 
rich  old  places  full  of  pictures  and  churches  and  town  halls 
(these  last  the  scenes  of  the  first  struggle  of  municipal  freedom)  ; 
i.e.,  by  Liege,  Brussels,  Namur,  Aix-la-Chapelle,  we  come  to 
spend  Sunday  at  Cologne.  I  do  not  deem  myself  ill  employed 
in  spending  some  few  hours  in  wandering  around  that  miracle  of 
art,  that  half-finished  cathedral,  number  one  in  Gothic  architec 
ture  the  world  over  ;  and  staring  rather  stupidly  at  that  romance- 
known  and  queer  old  chapel  which  boasts  of  having  the  skulls 
of  the  three  kings  who  saluted  Mary  and  the  Child.  I  would  I 
could  stop  to  catalogue  the  strange  list  of  relics  they  pretend  to 
show  in  Catholic  shrines,  from  the  Saviour's  blood  downward. 
It  is  certainly  shocking,  the  manner  in  which  they  have  ran 
sacked  the  Gospel  and  marked  the  slightest  things — and  some 
times  ludicrous,  though  the  blind  devotion  which  they  inspire 
can  only  and  always  be  melancholy.  But,  if  you  trust  them,  you 
can  see  almost  any  article  named  in  Holy  Writ,  and  sometimes, 
unfortunately,  two  of  the  same  things. 

"  The  next  day  we  launched  on  the  Rhine — river  ever-vary 
ing,  always  grand  and  noble  ;  while  we  just  set  foot  for  the 
night  at  Coblenz.  Come  with  me,  and  I'll  show  you  the  house 
where  Metternich  was  born  ;  and  in  that  little  church  yonder 
the  sons  of  Charlemagne  met  to  divide  his  empire. 

1  This  refers  to  his  wife. 


140  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

"  In  the  Frankfort  library,  they  show  you  the  first  printed 
Bible,  1450  or  1455,  by  Gutenberg,  at  Mayence  (no  date  in  it, 
though),  on  paper  which  is  as  rare  as  many  of  these  earliest  prints 
were  on  parchment — perhaps  the  oldest  printing  in  the  world, 
and  seen  almost  in  its  cradle.  We  have  seen  here,  at  Florence, 
many  ancient  stamps  for  pottery,  etc.,  made  of  one  piece  of  iron, 
and  with  over  thirty  letters  cut  upon  them,  just  like  a  stereotype 
plate,  to  stamp  the  maker's  name  on  bread  or  burned  ware. 
Strange  that  they  were  thus  in  sight  of  this  glorious  invention — 
only  one  step,  and  to  take  that  step  cost  fifteen  hundred  years  ! 

"  Look  here,  and  you  may  take  into  your  hands  the  very  shoes 
Luther  wore  (always  provided  the  librarian  holds  on  to  the  other 
end  to  see  you  do  not  vanish  with  them),  just  such  sandals  as 
one  sees  now  every  day  on  the  monks'  feet  in  Italy.  'Tis 
strange  how  alike  the  human  mind  is,  all  nations  and  both 
sexes  through.  I  have  found  one  vein  of  defect  running  through 
Catholicism  into  Quakerism.  For  instance,  the  monks  dress  in 
the  fashion  of  five  hundred  years  ago  ;  these  shoes  might  be 
mated  in  any  Italian  town  now,  and  could  have  been  in  the  days 
of  Petrarch. 

*'  Yet  St.  Benedict,  when  he  laid  down  the  rules  of  his  order, 
commanded  only  plainness,  and  cautioned  against  singularity. 
How  like  broad-brim  and  straight  collars  ! 

"  But  a  truce  to  prosing.  Like  the  Scotsman  '  back  agen,' 
we  came  to  Frankfort,  made  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Wood- 
bridge — a  very  pleasant  one— he  was  very  civil  and  kind,  as 
Americans  always  ought  to  be  to  each  other  in  strange  coun 
tries  ;  and  then  down  to  Switzerland,  to  Schaffhausen,  with  its 
falls,  the  boast  of  Europe  ;  so-so  to  an  American,  though,  to  be 
sure,  they  are  beautiful.  But  when  [  see  falls  here,  I  always 
think  of  the  story  of  a  cockney  who  was  visiting  in  the  country, 
and  on  being  requested  to  observe  a  fine  river  exclaimed,  '  Yes, 
fine,  very  fine  for  a  country  river.'  So  it  is  with  the  European 
falls  ;  not  so,  though,  with  the  beautiful  shoot  of  the  Staubbach, 
which  falls  some  eight  or  nine  hundred  feet  into  a  fearful  valley 
hemmed  in  by  precipices  of  black  rock  on  both  sides  thousands 
of  feet  high  ;  on  one  side  the  falls,  and  on  the  other,  peering 
over  the  lowering  black  rocks,  you  see  the  glistening  white  of 
the  eternal  snow  of  the  glaciers  reflecting  the  sunset.  Oh, 
those  glaciers  !  surely  next  to  the  ocean  they  are  the  sublimest 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  141 

natural  objects  in  the  world.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  except  Niagara, 
but  am  not  sure.  Winter— not  in  the  lap  of  spring,  but  of  sum 
mer  ;  roses  at  your  feet,  blue-cold  ice,  dazzling  snow  over  your 
head  ;  and,  far  up  in  the  sky,  towering  above  the  barren  piles  of 
rock,  perfect  wildernesses  of  snow — heaps  on  heaps. 

"  At  Milan  we  received  a  letter  from  Elizabeth  Pease.  She  is 
a  noble  woman,  worth  coming  to  a  '  World's  Convention,'  and 
not  finding  one,  to  make  her  acquaintance. 

"  Remember  us  and  pray  for  us,  that  we  may  be  kept  forever 
watching  the  will  of  God  and  doing  it  with  hearts  pure  and 
raised  above  every  worldly  motive  or  temptation. 
"  Yours  most  truly, 

"WENDELL  PHILLIPS." 

Wendell  Phillips  in  Florence  !  The  swift  radical 
for  once  at  rest  among  conservatives  !  The  archi 
tect  of  the  future  in  the  city  of  the  past  !  The  con 
trast  was  sharp.  Yet  there  was  in  him  a  singular 
combination  of  radicalism  and  conservatism.  Men 
tally  he  belie»ved  in  and  worked  for  a  nobler  to-mor 
row.  In  sentiment  he  was  reminiscent,  and  delighted 
to  think  and  speak  of  the  fated  yesterday.  Hence, 
he  found  Florence  a  place  of  enchantments. 

Such  landscapes  as  might  be  viewed 

"  At  evening  from  the  top  of  Fesole, 
Or  in  Val'darno  ;" 

such  dark  piles  of  mediaeval  architecture  as  frowned 
down  upon  him  on  every  side,  a  romance  in  each 
stone  ;  such  museums  filled  with  the  medals  and 
coins  of  every  age,  and  populous  with  the  breathing 
marbles  and  the  inspired  canvas  of  the  master  artists  ; 
such  libraries  stored  with  the  choicest  texts  of  ancient 
letters  ;  such  gardens — rose,  orange,  pomegran 
ate,  myrtle — bewitching  the  air  with  fragrance— 


142  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

where  else  would  a  scholar  so  willingly  live  or 
die?1 

Many  and  lingering  were  his  visits  to  the  Church 
of  Santa  Cruce  ;  to  the  house  of  Michel  Angelo  ;  to 
the  stone  where  Dante  stood  to  gaze  on  the  Cam 
panile.  Nor  did  this  latest  struggler  for  truth  omit 
to  go  where  Milton,  also  a  wanderer  amid  these 
kindling  scenes,  went,  to  the  house  where  Galileo 
lived  and  died — half-villa  and  half-prison,  where  the 
English  poet  (another  of  those  "  of  whom  the  world 
was  not  worthy")  found  the  great  Italian,  who  first 
beheld  the  heavens  through  a  telescope  and  saw 
Venus  crescent  like  the  moon,  grown  old  and  blind, 
and  held  a  "  prisoner  to  the  Inquisition  for  thinking 
on  astronomy  otherwise  than  as  the  Dominican  and 
Franciscan  licensers  thought." 

From  Florence  the  Phillipses  turned  with  a  sigh 
of  regret  and  sought  Leghorn  for  the  sea-breezes. 
Here  they  welcomed  the  birth  of  the  year  i84i.3 
Here,  too,  they  learned  of  another  birth,  that  of  a 
young  son  of  Mr.  Garrison,  away  off  in  Boston, 
whom  the  parents  had  honored  one  of  the  wanderers 
by  naming  Wendell  Phillips.4  Writing  from  Leg 
horn  in  recognition  of  it,  he  says  to  a  relative  : 
"  What  shall  I  say  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison's 
touching  mark  of  kindly  feeling  ?  I  ask  you  to  thank 

1  These  points  are  variously  touched  in  letters  which  he  wrote  and 
which  we  thus  summarize. 

3  "  Milton's  Prose  Works,"  vol.  i.,  p.  313. 

3  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  10. 

4  This  gentleman  has   reflected   credit  up>n   his   name.      He    was 
educated  (by   his  namesake)  at   Harvard   College,  and  has  been  for 
years  prominent  and  useful  in  connection  with   the  New  York  press  ; 
and  latterly  has  given  to  the  world  a  consummate  record  of  his  father's 
life  and  work,  aided  by  a  brother. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  143 

him  for  this  new  token  of  his  love  and  to  pet  the 
little  one  until  I  return  to  do  it  I"1 

Three  months  later  the  travellers  reached  Naples, 
ascended  Vesuvius,  wandered  through  the  once- 
buried  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum,  "  adored  the 
bay,"  and  laughed  at  the  lazy  lazzaroni  as  they 
sunned  themselves  at  full  length  on  the  sidewalks. 
On  April  I2th  Mr.  Phillips  wrote  to  Mr.  Garrison, 
with  Naples  for  a  writing-desk. 

His  letter  is  so  characteristic  and  reveals  his  artis 
tic  and  humanitarian  instincts — two  selves  in  one — so 
remarkably,  that  we  must  quote  some  portions  of 
it  : 

11  'Tis  a  melancholy  tour,  this  through  Europe  ;  and  I  do  not 
understand  how  any  one  can  return  from  it  without  being,  in 
Coleridge's  phrase,  '  a  sadder  and  a  wiser  man.'  Every  reflect 
ing  mind  must  be  struck  at  home  with  the  many  social  evils 
which  prevail  ;  but  the  most  careless  eye  cannot  avoid  seeing 
the  powerful  contrasts  which  sadden  one  here  at  every  step  ; 
wealth  beyond  that  of  fairy  tales,  and  poverty  bare  and  starved 
at  its  side  ;  refinement  face  to  face  with  barbarism  ;  cultiva 
tion,  which  hardly  finds  room  to  be,  crowded  out  on  all  sides  by 
such  debasement.  .  .  .  Europe  is  the  treasure-house  of  rich 
memories,  with  every  city  a  shrine.  Mayence,  the  mother  of 
printing  and  free  trade  ;  Amalfi,  with  her  Pandects,  the  foun 
tain  of  law — her  compass  of  commerce — her  Masaniello  of 
popular  freedom  ;  Naples,  with  her  buried  satellite  of  Pom 
peii  ;  Florence,  with  her  galaxy  of  genius  ;  Rome,  whose 
name  is  at  once  history  and  'description,  must  ever  be  the 
1  Meccas  of  the  mind.'  One  must  see  them  to  realize  the  bound 
less  wealth,  the  refinement  of  art,  the  luxury,  to  which  the  an 
cients  had  attained.  The  modern  world  deems  itself  rich  when 
it  gathers  up  only  the  fragments. 

"  But  all  the  fascinations  of  art  and  the  luxuries  of  modern 
civilization  are  no  balance  to  the  misery  which  bad  laws  and 


"  Wil.Uoi  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  413,  note. 


144  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

bad  religion  alike  entail  on  the  bulk  of  the  people.  The  Apollo 
himself  cannot  dazzle  one  blind  to  the  rags  and  want  which  sur 
round  him.  Nature  is  not  wholly  beautiful.  For  even  when 
she  marries  a  matchless  sky  to  her  Bay  of  Naples  the  impression 
is  saddened  by  the  presence  of  degraded  and  suffering  humanity. 
When  you  meet  in  the  same  street  a  man  encompassed  with  all 
the  equipage  of  wealth  and  the  beggar  on  whose  brow  disease 
and  starvation  have  written  his  title  to  your  pity,  the  question  is 
involuntary,  Is  this  a  Christian  city  ?  To  my  mind  the  answer 
is,  No.  In  our  own  country  the  same  contrasts  exist,  but  they 
are  not  yet  so  sharply  drawn  as  here.  I  hope  the  discussion  of 
the  question  of  property  will  not  cease  until  the  Church  is  con 
vinced  that,  from  Christian  lips  ownership  means  responsibility 
for  the  right  use  of  what  God  has  given  ;  that  the  title  of  a 
needy  brother  is  as  sacred  as  the  owner's  own,  and  infringed 
upon,  too,  whenever  that  owner  allows  the  siren  voice  of  his 
own  tastes  to  drown  the  cry  of  another's  necessities.  .  .  . 

"  The  moral  stagnation  here  only  makes  us  value  more  highly 
the  stirring  arena  at  home.  None  know  what  it  is  to  live  till 
they  redeem  life  from  monotony  by  sacrifice.  There  is  more 
happiness  in  one  such  hour  than  in  dwelling  forever  with  the 
beautiful  and  grand  which  Angelo's  chisel  has  shaped  and  vital 
ized  from  the  '  marble  chaos,'  or  the  pencil  of  Raphael  has  given 
to  immortality.  .  .  . 

"  Nothing  brings  home  so  vividly  to  Ann  as  the  sight  of  an 
occasional  colored  man  in  the  street  ;  and  so  you  see  we  are 
ready  to  return  to  our  posts  in  nothing  changed.  ...  In  one 
way,  I  have  learned  to  value  my  absence.  I  have  found  diffi 
culty  in  answering  others — however  clear  my  own  mind  might 
be — when  charged  with  taking  steps  which  the  sober  judgment 
of  old  age  would  regret,  with  being  hurried  recklessly  forward 
by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  moment  and  the  excitement  of  heated 
meetings.  I  am  glad,  therefore,  to  have  had  this  space  aside, 
this  opportunity  of  holding  up  our  cause,  with  all  its  bearings 
and  incidents,  calmly  before  my  mind — of  having  distance  of 
place  perform,  as  far  as  possible,  the  part  of  distance  of  years 
— of  being  able  to  look  back  from  other  scenes  and  studies  upon 
the  course  we  have  taken  the  last  few  years.  Having  done  so, 
I  rejoice  now  to  say,  that  every  hour  of  such  thought  convinces 
me,  more  and  more,  of  the  overwhelming  claims  our  cause  has 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  145 

on  the  lifelong  devotion  of  each  of  us — of  the  rightfulness  and 
expediency  of  every  step  we  have  taken  ;  and  I  hope  to  return 
to  my  place  prepared  to  urge  its  claims  with  more  earnestness, 
and  to  stand  fearlessly  by  it  without  a  doubt  of  its  success. 

"Paul's  'appeal  to  Caesar'  brought  him  into  this  Bay  of 
Naples,  and  he  must  have  seen  all  its  fair  shores  and  jutting 
headlands  covered  with  baths  and  villas,  imperial  palaces  and 
temples  of  the  gods.  A  prisoner  of  a  despised  race,  he  stood  in 
the  presence  of  the  pomp  and  luxury  of  the  Roman  people.  Even 
amid  their  ruins,  I  could  not  but  realize  how  strong  the  faith  of 
the  Apostle  to  believe  that  the  message  he  bore  would  triumph 
alike  over  their  power  and  their  religion.  Struggling  against 
priests  and  people  may  we  cherish  a  like  faith."  ' 

The  travellers  returned  to  England  by  way  of  Paris 
(another  city  which  charmed  them  both — a  second 
visit),  and  went  thence  again  to  London,  where  they 
spent  the  last  fortnight  in  June  with  Elizabeth 
Pease.2  Mr.  Phillips  found  his  friend  George 
Thompson  busily  engaged  in  organizing  a  British- 
India  agency  for  the  cultivation  of  cotton,  the  object 
being  to  compete  with  the  South  in  the  markets  of 
the  world,  in  the  hope  of  superseding  slave  labor  in 
the  production  and  sale  of  that  staple.  He  wrote 
and  published  an  open  letter  to  Mr.  Thompson,  from 
which  we  quote  : 

"  How  shall  we  address  that  large  class  of  men  to  whom 
dollars  are  always  a  weightier  consideration  than  duties,  prices 
current  stronger  argument  than  proofs  of  Holy  Writ  ?  Our 
appeal  has  been  entreaty  ;  for  the  times  in  America  are  those 
'  pursy  times  '  when, 

"  '  Virtue  itself  of  Vice  must  pardon  beg, 

Yea,  curb  and  woo  for  leave  to  do  him  good.' 

"  But  from  India  a  voice  comes  clothed  with  the  omnipotence 


1  Published  in  Liberator,  vol.  xi.,  p.  87. 

2  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  10. 


146  WENDELL   PIIlLLirS. 

of  self-interest  ;  and  the  wisdom  which  might  have  been  slighted 
from  the  pulpit,  will  be  to  such  men  oracular  from  the  market 
place.  Gladly  will  we  make  a  pilgrimage  and  bow  with  more 
than  Eastern  devotion  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges,  if  his  holy 
waters  shall  be  able  to  wear  away  the  fetters  of  the  slave.  God 
speed  the  progress  of  your  society  !  May  it  soon  find  in  its 
ranks  the  whole  phalanx  of  scarred  and  veteran  Abolitionists — 
no  single  divided  effort,  but  a  united  one  to  grapple  with  the 
wealth,  influence,  and  power  embattled  against  you  !  Is  it  not 
Schiller  who  says,  '  Divide  the  thunder  into  single  tones,  and  it 
becomes  a  lullaby  for  children  ;  but  pour  it  forth  in  one  quick 
peal,  and  the  royal  sound  shall  shake  the  heavens  '  ?  So  may  it 
be  with  you  !  And  God  grant  that,  without  waiting  for  the 
United  States  to  be  consistent,  before  we  are  dust,  the  jubilee  of 
emancipated  millions  may  reach  us  from  Mexico  to  the  Potomac, 
and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Rocky  Mountains."  ' 

No  lasting1  good  resulted  from  the  British-India 
endeavor,  which  enlisted  the  co-operating  efforts  of 
American  Abolitionists,2  though  for  a  space  it  threw 
the  Pro-Slavery  interest  into  spasms  of  apprehen 
sion.3 

Alter  an  absence  of  a  little  more  than  two  years 
the  Phillipses  embarked  from  Liverpool  for  home  on 
July  4th,  1841,*  crossing  by  steamer,  then  thought 
hazardous,  but  taken,  notwithstanding,  by  these 
friends  of  progress.  Unhappily  their  chief  purpose 
was  not  achieved,  the  wife  returning  as  she  had  de 
parted,  a  chronic  sufferer.  But  they  had  seen  and 


1  Vide  "  Wendell  Phillips  and  his  Times,"  by  George  L.  Austin, 
pp.  103,  104. 

'2  Compare  a  letter  written  by  William  Lloj'd  Garrison  to  Joseph 
Pease  (brother  of  Elizabeth),  of  Darlington,  England,  on  the  same  sub 
ject,  in  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  391-94. 

:!  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  393,  note. 

-1  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  10. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  147 

felt  much,  storing-  a  wealth  of  new  emotions  and 
bearing  back  a  mass  of  classic  spoil  as  the  criteria  of 
endless  comparison  and  illustration.  In  so  far  as  the 
completion  of  his  outfit  as  a  reformer  and  orator  is 
concerned,  Wendell  Phillips  could  not  have  spent 
those  years  more  admirably. 


V. 

NO.    26   ESSEX   STREET. 

THE  Phillipses  reached  Boston  about  the  middle 
of  July.1  Their  return  was  commemorated  by  a 
formal  reception  and  collation,  at  which  the  entire 
Abolitionist  community  was  present,  with  the  grate 
ful  colored  people  in  the  role  of  host.  Slavery  and 
salads  were  discussed  with  equal  gusto  ;  and  the 
absentees  were  told  how  sadly  they  had  been  missed 
and  how  gladly  they  were  welcomed  back.2  Hav 
ing  been  thus  dined  (but  not  wined),  they  went  to 
the  summer  house  of  Mr.  Phillips's  mother  in  Nahant, 
a  resort  of  the  Jlite,  within  half  an  hour  of  town, 
where  they  passed  two  or  three  months,  meanwhile 
arranging  for  a  home  of  their  very  own.  Mrs.  Phil 
lips  paints  their  temporary  refuge  in  one  of  the  rare 
letters  traced  by  her  pen,  and  addressed  to  her  dear 
friend  in  England,  Miss  Elizabeth  Pease  : 

"  Picture  to  yourself  a  great  wooden  house,  with  doors  and 
blinds  as  usual,  a  mile  from  any  other  habitation,  little  grass 
and  fewer  trees,  and  you  have  '  Phillips's  Cliff.'  The  village  of 
Nahant  is  about  a  mile  from  our  house  ;  there  Dame  Fashion 
struts  about  three  months  of  the  summer,  but  we  have  the  bless 
ing  of  being  out  of  her  way  and  doing  as  we  please.  Here 
dwells,  in  summer,  Wendell's  mother  ;  one  of  her  daughters, 
with  five  children,  one  side  of  the  house,  we  with  her  in  the 


1  On  the  iyth. 

a  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  Hi.,  pp.  17,  18.     See  note  also. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  149 

other.  What  with  fifteen  children  and  twenty  grandchildren  at 
intervals  dropping  in  upon  her,  you  see  she  is  not  alone.  We 
rise  about  seven,  breakfast  at  half-past.  Wendell  rows  the  boat 
for  exercise  ;  bathes.  I  walk  with  him  in  the  morning  ;  dine  at 
two  ;  in  the  afternoon  we  ride  with  mother  ;  tea  at  seven  ;  in 
the  evening  we  play  chess  or  backgammon  with  her,  or  some 
brother  or  sister  comes  to  pass  the  night,  and  we  dispute  away 
on  the  great  questions.  We  are  considered  as  heretics  and 
almost  infidels,  but  we  pursue  the  even  tenor  of  our  way  undis 
turbed.  Sometimes  Wendell  goes  off  abolitionizing  for  two  or 
three  days,  but  I  remain  on  the  ground." 

Mrs.  Phillips  had  inherited  from  her  father  a  tiny 
brick  house  of  the  English  basement  style  on  Essex 
Street,  No.  26.  Here  the  young  couple  decided  to 
make  their  home.  A  dining-room  and  a  kitchen  on 
the  ground  floor ;  a  double  parlor  facing  south  (un 
like  the  occupants),  small,  but  suitable  for  a  literary 
workshop,  on  the  second  floor  ;  front  and  back  cham 
bers  (destined  to  form  Mrs.  Phillips' s  realm)  on  the 
third  floor,  with  attic  accommodations  for  the  ser 
vants  ;  such,  in  its  ensemble,  was  the  snuggery  in 
which  they  were  to  reside  for  forty  years.1  It  was 
as  contracted  as  their  sympathies  were  expanded. 
Knowing  their  own  social  gravitation,  they  selected 
this  robin's  nest  precisely  in  order  to  make  enter 
tainment  impossible.  It  was  to  be  the  abode  of  an 
invalid — a  domestic  sanitarium. 

The  house  stood,  however,  in  the  midst  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  colony — the  Garrisons,  the  Chapmans, 
the  Jacksons,  the  Lorings,  within  five  minutes' 
walk.2  It  was  a  time  when  companionship  was 
needed.  Abolitionists  might  well  huddle  together 
for  association,  as  the  early  settlers  used  to  for  pro 
tection  when  the  Indians  were  prowling  about. 

1  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  pp.  10,  n.  2  Ib.,  p.  18. 


ISO  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Just  as  soon  as  they  were  settled  Mr.  Phillips 
wrote  to  Miss  Pease  : 

"  November  25,  1841. 

"  I  am  writing  in  our  own  parlor— wish  you  were  in  it— on 
4  Thanksgiving  Day.'  Did  you  ever  hear  of  that  name  ?  'Tis 
an  old  custom  in  New  England,  begun  to  thank  God  for  a  prov 
idential  arrival  of  food  from  the  mother-country  in  sixteen  hun 
dred  and  odd  year,  and  perpetuated  now  wherever  a  New  Eng- 
lander  dwells,  some  time  in  autumn,  by  the  Governor's  appoint 
ment.  All  is  hushed  of  business  about  me  ;  the  devout  pass  the 
morning  at  church  ;  those  who  have  wandered  to  other  cities 
hurry  back  to  worship  to-day  where  their  fathers  knelt,  and 
gather  sons  and  grandsons,  to  the  littlest  prattler,  under  the  old 
roof-tree  to — shall  I  break  the  picture  ?— cram  as  much  turkey 
and  plum-pudding  as  possible  ;  a  sort  of  compromise  by  Puritan 
love  of  good  eating  for  denying  itself  that  '  wicked  papistrie,' 
Christmas." 

A  humorous  account  follows  of  the  first  trials  of 
the  young  housekeepers  with  unpromising  servants, 
and  there  is  a  mention  of  a  friend's  calling  and  find 
ing  him  sawing  a  piece  of  soapstone  : 

"  I  set  to  work  to  fix  a  chimney,  having  a  great  taste  for  car 
pentering  and  mason-work.  (When  I  set  up  for  a  gentleman, 
there  was  a  good  mechanic  spoiled,  Ann  says.)  .  .  .  Ann's 
health  is  about  the  same.  She  gets  tired  out  every  day  trying 
to  oversee  '  the  keeping  house,'  as  we  Americans  call  it  when 
two  persons  take  more  rooms  than  they  need,  buy  double  the 
things  that  they  want,  hire  two  or  three  others,  just,  for  all  the 
world,  for  the  whole  five  to  devote  themselves  to  keeping  the 
establishment  in  order.  I  long  for  the  time  when  there'll  be  no 
need  of  sweeping  and  dusting,  and  when  eating  will  be  for 
gotten."  l 

A  little  later  Mrs.  Phillips  gives  the  same  friend 
"  some  little  insight  into  indoor  life  at  No.  26  Essex 
Street:" 


"  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  12. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  !$! 

"  There  is  your  Wendell  seated  in  the  arm-chair,  lazy  and 
easy  as  ever,  perhaps  a  lit.tle  fatter  than  when  you  saw  him,  still 
protesting  how  he  was  ruined  by  marrying.  Your  humble  ser 
vant  looks  like  the  Genius  of  Famine,  as  she  always  did,  one  of 
Pharaoh's  lean  kine.  She  laughs  considerably,  continues  in 
health  in  the  same  naughty  way,  has  been  pretty  well,  for  her, 
this  winter.  Now  what  do  you  think  her  life  is  ?  Why,  she 
strolls  out  a  few  steps  occasionally,  calling  it  a  walk  ;  the  rest 
of  the  time,  from  bed  to  sofa,  from  sofa  to  rocking-chair  ;  reads, 
generally,  the  Standard  and  Liberator,  and  that  is  pretty  much 
all  the  literature  her  aching  head  will  allow  her  to  peruse  ; 
rarely  writes  a  letter,  sees  no  company,  makes  no  calls,  looks 
forward  to  spring  and  birds,  when  she  will  be  a  little  freer  ;  is 
cross  very  often,  pleasant  at  other  times,  loves  her  dear  L—  and 
thinks  a  great  deal  of  her  ;  and  now  you  have  Ann  Phillips. 

"  Now  I'll  take  up  another  strain,  This  winter  has  been 
marked  to  us  by  our  keeping  house  for  the  first  time.  I  call  it 
housekeeping  ;  but,  alas  !  we  have  not  the  pleasure  of  entertain 
ing  angels,  awares  or  unawares.  We  have  a  small  house,  but 
large  enough  for  us,  only  a  few  rooms  furnished — just  enough 
to  try  to  make  me  more  comfortable  than  at  board.  But  then 
I  am  not  well  enough  even  to  have  friends  to  tea,  so  that  all  I 
strive  to  do  is  to  keep  the  house  neat  and  keep  myself  about. 
I  have  attended  no  meetings  since  I  helped  fill  *  the  negro  pew.' 
What  Anti-Slavery  news  1  get,  1  get  second-hand.  I  should  not 
get  along  at  all,  so  great  is  my  darkness,  were  it  not  for  Wen 
dell  to  tell  me  that  the  world  is  still  going  on.  .  .  .  We  are  very 
happy,  and  only  have  to  regret  my  health  being  so  poor  and 
our  own  sinfulness.  Dear  Wendell  speaks  whenever  he  can 
leave  me,  and  for  his  sake  I  sometimes  wish  I  were  myself 
again  ;  but  I  dare  say  it  is  all  right  as  it  is."  1 

And  now,  with  a  fireside  of  his  own,  and  so  far, 
tried  by  the  most  orthodox  canons,  a  "  respectable" 
and  responsible  citizen,  the  "  vagabond  Abolitionist" 
was  ready  to  buckle  on  his  armor. 

1  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  13. 


VI. 

THE  IRISH  ADDRESS. 

DURING  Mr.  Phillips's  long  absence  the  contro 
versy  over  the  status  of  women  in  the  Anti-Slavery 
societies1  had  torn  these  bodies  asunder,  so  that,  like 
the  patriarch  Jacob,  Mr.  Garrison  could  say  :  "  With 
my  staff  I  passed  over  this  Jordan,  and  now  I  am 
become  two  bands."  National,  State,  county,  city 
bodies — all  were  divided,  and  everywhere  there  were 
two  instead  of  one.a  The  doubling  of  names,  how 
ever,  did  not  denote  a  doubling  of  forces.  When 
the  schism  occurred,  the  Garrisonians,  having  out 
voted  the  schismatics,  retained  possession  of  the 
original  organizations.  But  they  lost  their  national 
organ,  which  eloped  with  the  retiring  faction,  so  that 
they  were  compelled  to  establish  a  new  one,  the 
Standard,  which  was  published  in  New  York  and 
was  a  sort  of  twin  of  the  Liberator,  Mr.  Garrison's 
personal  mouthpiece. 

Among  the  Garrisonians  the  women  were  enfran 
chised,  and  continued  to  render  the  most  unselfish 
and  successful  service.  Being  free  now  from  dis 
turbing  elements  they  compacted  themselves  and 
reaffirmed  their  purpose  to  conduct  a  purely  moral 


1  Ante,  p.  116  sqq. 

2  See  this  whole  question  elaborately  treated  in  "  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,"  vol.  \\.,  passim. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  153 

war  against  slavery,  avowing  their  confidence  in 
conscience  and  reason  and  discussion  as  the  surest 
means  wherewith  to  pull  down  the  strongholds  of 
oppression.1  On  the  other  hand,  the  seceding 
brethren  tended  increasingly  to  adopt  political  meth 
ods,  and  were  soon  drawn  into  parties  which  rallied 
to  stone  slavery  with  ballots. 

As  all  the  world  knows,  Mr.  Phillips  sided  in  this 
division  with  the  Garrisonians  and  remained  to  be 
their  attorney-general.  In  common  with  Abolition 
ists  of  every  faction,  he  was  incensed  at  this  hour 
by  the  recent  action  of  Congress  in  denying  the 
right  of  petition— a  right  as  old  as  Anglo-Saxon  lib 
erty  and  embalmed  in  the  Magna  Charta.  Congress 
had  been  bombarded  for  years  with  petitions  for 
emancipation  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  In  Jan 
uary,  1841,  the-  House  of  Representatives  passed  a 
gag  law  :2  "  That  no  petition  praying  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  or  any  State 
or  any  Territory,  or  the  slave  trade  between  the 
States  or  Territories  of  the  United  States,  in  which 
it  now  exists,  shall  be  received  by  this  House." 
The  obsequious  Senate  made  haste  to  concur.3  Nor 
was  this  all.  Ex-President  John  Quincy  Adams,  a 
Representative  of  Massachusetts,  who  had  been  hon 
orably  active  in  presenting  these  petitions,  and  who 
in  eminence  and  value  of  public  service  was  easily 
the  foremost  statesman  in  America,  was  menaced 
with  expulsion  for  his  "  impudence./' 


1  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  391. 

2  By  a  vote  of  114  yeas  to  108  nays.     A  close  vote.     But  slavery 
could  say  with  Mercutio,  in  the  play  :  "  'Tis  not  so  deep  as  a  well, 
nor  so  wide  as  a  church  door  ;  but  'tis  enough." 

3  Vide  "  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power,"  by  Henry  Wilson. 


154  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

In  the  autumn  alter  his  return  from  Europe  an 
event  occurred  which  Mr.  Phillips  eagerly  seized 
and  used  as  a  sword  with  which  to  smite  this  defiant 
aggression,  this  twofold  assault  upon  freedom. 

There  came  from  Ireland  a  monster  appeal  signed 
by  seventy  thousand  Irishmen,  with  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell  and  Father  Mathew  at  their  head,  condemning 
slavery  and  urging  the  Irish  in  America  to  identify 
themselves  with  the  Abolitionists.1  At  this  crisis 
the  Irish  were,  almost  without  exception,  on  the  side 
of  slavery.  They  belonged  to  the  laboring  class. 
They  were  thus  brought  into  competition  with  the 
negroes.  Their  freedom  and  their  color  alone  dis 
tinguished  those  from  these.  All  the  more  strongly, 
therefore,  did  they  prize  and  seek  to  emphasize  the 
marks  of  distinction.  Moreover,  finding,  as  they 
did,  the  wealth  and  fashion  and  political  power  of 
the  country  arrayed  against  the  Abolitionists,  and 
hungry  themselves  for  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt,  they 
naturally  hurrahed  for  Pharaoh  and  went  where 
they  could  fill  their  stomachs  and  their  pockets.  It 
is  only  a  saint  who  can  prefer  a  lean  right  to  a  fat 
wrong,  truth  out-at-the-elbow  to  error  in  broad 
cloth. 

The  Abolitionists  hailed  the  Irish  petition  with  en 
thusiasm.  They  hoped  it  might  prove  the  fulcrum 
on  which  to  rest  their  Archimedes-lever  and  move 
over  the  Irish  in  America  from  that  side  to  this. 
They  secured  Faneuil  Hall.  They  opened  it  on  the 
evening  of  January  28th,  1842,  and  filled  it  as  it  had 
not  been  filled  since  the  Lovejoy  meeting  in  1837. 
Wendell  Phillips  now  as  then  was  the  orator  of  the 


Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xii.,  p.  39,  for  the  full  text. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  155 

occasion.  Fresh  from  the  old  world,  with  the  rich 
Irish  brogue  of  O'Connell  still  in  his  ears,  he  mounted 
the  rostrum  and  delivered  an  address  which  capti 
vated  the  assemblage,  the  Irish,  especially,  who 
were  present  in  crowds,  going  wild  over  it.  This  is 
what  he  said  : 

"  I  hold  in  my  hand,  Mr.  Chairman,  a  resolution  expressive  of 
our  thanks  to  the  seventy  thousand  Irishmen  who  have  sent  us 
that  token  of  their  sympathy  and  interest,  and  especially  to  those 
high  and  gallant  spirits  who  lead  the  noble  list.  1  must  say 
that  never  have  I  stood  in  the  presence  of  an  audience  with 
higher  hopes  of  the  rapid  progress  and  success  of  our  cause  than 
now.  I  remember  with  what  devoted  earnestness,  with  what 
unfaltering  zeal,  Ireland  has  carried  on  so  many  years  the 
struggle  for  her  own  freedom.  It  is  from  such  men — whose 
hearts  lost  no  jot  of  their  faith  in  the  grave  of  Emmet,  over 
whose  zeal  the  loss  of  Curran  and  Grattan  could  throw  no  damp, 
who  are  now  turning  the  trophies  of  one  field  of  victory  into 
weapons  for  new  conquests,  whom  a  hireling  press  and  prej 
udiced  public  could  never  sever  a  moment  from  O'Connell's  side 
— it  is  from  the  sympathy  of  such  that  we  have  a  right  to  hope 
much. 

"The  image  of  the  generous  isle  comes  to  us,  not  only 
'  crowned  with  the  spoil  of  every  science,  and  decked  with  the 
wreath  of  every  muse,'  but  we  cannot  forget  that  she  lent  to 
Waterloo  the  sword  which  cut  the  despot's  '  shattered  sceptre 
through  ;'  and,  to  American  ears,  the  crumbled  walls  of  St. 
Stephen's  yet  stand  to  echo  the  eloquence  of  her  Burke,  when, 
at  the  foot  of  the  British  throne,  he  took  his  place  side  by  side 
with  that  immortal  rebel  (pointing  to  the  picture  of  Washing 
ton). 

"  From  a  priest  of  the  Catholic  Church  we  might  expect  superi 
ority  to  that  prejudice  against  color  which  freezes  the  sympathies 
of  our  own  churches  when  humanity  points  to  the  slave.  I  re 
member  that  African  lips  may  join  in  the  chants  of  the  Church, 
unrebuked,  even  under  the  dome  at  St.  Peter's  ;  and  I  have  seen 
the  colored  man  in  the  sacred  dress  pass  with  priest  and  student 
beneath  the  frowning  portals  of  the  Propaganda  College  at 


156  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Rome,  with  none  to  sneer  at  his  complexion,  or  repulse  him 
from  society. 

"  I  remember  that  a  long  line  of  popes,  from  Leo  to  Gregory, 
have  denounced  the  sin  of  making  merchandise  of  men  ;  that 
the  voice  of  Rome  was  the  first  to  be  heard  against  the  slave- 
trade,  and  that  the  bull  of  Gregory  XVI  ,  forbidding  every  true 
Catholic  to  touch  the  accursed  thing,  is  yet  hardly  a  year  old. 

'*  Ireland  is  the  land  of  agitation  and  agitators.  We  may 
well  learn  a  lesson  from  her  in  the  battle  for  human  rights.  Her 
philosophy  is  no  recluse  ;  she  doffs  the  cowl  and  quits  the 
cloister,  to  grasp  in  friendly  effort  the  hands  of  the  people.  No 
pulse  beats  truer  to  liberty,  to  humanity,  than  those  which  in 
Dublin  quicken  at  every  good  from  Abolition  on  this  side  of  the 
ocean.  There  can  be  no  warmer  words  of  welcome  than  those 
which  welcome  the  American  Abolitionists  on  their  thresholds. 
Let  not  any  one  persuade  us,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  question 
of  slavery  is  no  business  of  ours,  but  belongs  entirely  to  the 
South. 

"  I  trust  in  that  love  of  liberty  which  every  Irishman  brings  to 
the  country  of  his  adoption,  to  make  him  true  to  her  cause  at  the 
ballot-box,  and  throw  no  vote  without  asking  if  the  hand  to 
which  he  is  about  to  trust  political  power  will  use  it  for  the 
slave.  When  an  American  was  introduced  to  O'Connell  in  the 
lobby  of  the  House  of  Commons,  he  asked,  without  putting  out 
his  hand,  '  Are  you  from  the  South  ?  '  '  Yes,  sir.'  '  A  slave 
holder,  I  presume  ?  '  '  Yes,  sir.'  '  Then,'  said  the  great  liber 
ator,  '  I  have  no  hand  for  you  !  '  and  stalked  away.  Shall  his 
countrymen  trust  that  hand  with  political  power  which  O'Con 
nell  deemed  it  pollution  to  touch  ? 

"  We  remember,  Mr.  Chairman,  that,  when  a  jealous  disposi 
tion  tore  from  the  walls  of  the  City  Hall  of  Dublin  the  picture  of 
Henry  Grattan,  the  act  but  did  endear  him  the  more  to  Ireland. 
The  slavocracy  of  our  land  thinks  to  expel  that  '  old  man  elo 
quent,'  with  the  dignity  of  seventy  winters  on  his  brow  (pointing 
to  a  picture  of  J.  Q.  Adams),  from  the  halls  of  Congress.  They 
will  find  him  only  the  more  lastingly  fixed  in  the  hearts  of  his 
countrymen. 

"  Mr.  Chairman,  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  at  least  the  name 
of  Father  Mathew.  We  remember  the  millions  who  pledged 
themselves  to  temperance  from  his  lips.  I  hope  his  countrymen 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  157 

will  join  with  me  in  pledging  here  eternal  hostility  to  slavery. 
'  Will  you  ever  return  to  his  master  the  slave  who  once  sets  foot 
on  the  soil  of  Massachusetts  ?'  (' No,  no,  no  ! ')  'Will  you  ever 
raise  to  office  or  power  the  man  who  will  not  pledge  his  utmost 
effort  against  slavery  ? '  ('  No,  no,  no  !') 

"  Then  may  we  not  hope  well  for  freedom  ?  Thanks  to  those 
noble  men  who  battle  in  her  cause  the  world  over.  The  '  ocean 
of  their  philanthropy  knows  no  shore.'  Humanity  knows  no 
country  ;  and  I  am  proud,  here  in  Faneuil  Hall,  fit  place  to  re 
ceive  their  message,  to  learn  of  O'Connell's  fidelity  to  freedom 
and  of  Father  Mathew's  love  to  the  real  interests  of  man."  J 

Amid  thunders  of  applause  Mr.  Phillips  retired 
and  the  meeting  adjourned.  Many  Irishmen  drew 
their  first  Anti-Slavery  breath  as  the  result  of  that 
speech,  and  threw  themselves  thenceforward  into 
the  movement  with  the  ardor  of  their  race.  When 
O'Connell  read  it  he  pronounced  it  the  most  classic 
short  speech  in  the  English  language,  and  said  :  4<  I 
resign  the  crown.  This  young  American  is  without 
an  equal."  2 

On  this  occasion  resolutions  denouncing  Congress 
for  tolerating  the  existence  of  slavery  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Capitol,  and  demanding  its  abolition 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  were  adopted  with  a 
roar  which  might  have  moved  the  envy  of  Niagara 
— a  genuine  Irish  roar. 

"  Well,"  remarked  Mr.  Phillips,  as  he  left  the  hall, 
11  we  will  send  our  resolution  to  Washington  spite 
of  the  gag  law.  And  we  say,  as  Patrick  Henry  did 
in  the  House  of  Burgesses,  when  he  spoke  to  George 
III.  across  the  ocean  :  '  If  this  be  treason,  make  the 
most  of  it!'  "3 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xii.,  p.  18. 

2  Letter  from  George  Thompson  to  Wendell  Phillips  (MS.). 

3  Letter  to  a  relative  (MS.). 


158  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  purpose  of  O' Council  and  Father  Mathew 
was  not  accomplished  by  their  address.  The  Irish 
press  in  America  unanimously  condemned  it.  The 
hierarchy  here,  through  the  lips  of  Bishop  Hughes,  of 
New  York,  impugned  its  genuineness  ;  and,  genuine 
or  not,  declared  it  the  duty  of  every  naturalized 
Irishman  to  resist  and  repudiate  it  with  indignation 
as  a  foreign  interference.-  The  various  Irish  repeal 
associations,  although  organized  to  interfere  in  Brit 
ish  affairs  from  this  side  of  the  water,  with  character 
istic  inconsistency  echoed  the  tone  of  Bishop  Hughes 
toward  O' Council  and  Mathew  for  their  interfer 
ence  in  American  affairs  from  the  other  side.  To 
illustrate  by  a  current  reference,  the  Irish  address 
met  precisely  the  fate  which  a  similar  appeal  would 
meet  to-day  headed  by  Parnell,  and  urging  the  Irish 
in  the  United  States  to  abjure  the  "  spoils  system," 
and  adhere  to  the  civil  service  reformers.1  Indi 
viduals  here  and  there  heard  and  heeded.  The  race 
continued  to  cheer  for  slavery  and  "  damn  the 


"  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  .45. 


VII. 

A  NEW   BATTLE   OF   CONCORD. 

THE  town  of  Concord,  some  twenty  miles  distant 
from  Boston,  and  the  twin  scene  with  Lexington  of 
the  first  battle  in  the  Revolution,  was  a  stronghold 
of  conservatism  in  the  'forties.  Half  a  dozen 
prominent  and  elderly  squires  dominated  it,  inso 
much  that  it  was  known  far  and  wide  as  Squireville. 
The  squirocracy  naturally  sympathized  with  the 
slavocracy.  In  the  winter  of  1842-43  the  Lyceum 
out  there  invited  Wendell  Phillips  to  come  and  give 
his  lecture  on  "  Street  Life  in  Europe"— an  outcome 
of  his  travels.  He  did  so,  confining  himself  in  the 
main  to  sights  abroad,  but  managing  to  give  slavery 
a  number  of  sharp  thrusts  as  he  trod  along.  These 
passing  references  piqued  curiosity,  and  he  was  in 
vited  to  come  again  the  next  winter  and  speak  on 
slavery.  He  gladly  accepted,  and  the  date  fixed 
was  January  i/th,  1844.  On  January  loth  a  promi 
nent  citizen  moved  in  the  Lyceum  (which  then  met 
weekly  for  debate),  that  Mr.  Phillips  be  asked  to 
choose  some  other  topic,  adding  that  his  sentiments 
on  slavery,  expressed  the  year  before,  were  "  vile, 
pernicious,  and  abominable."  A  large  majority 
voted  to  hear  him  on  slavery  and  nothing  else.  So 
he  came  according  to  agreement,  January  i/th,  and 
spoke  for  an  hour  and  a  half  in  a  strain  of  invective 
eloquence  very  galling  to  the  squires,  especially  to 


160  WENDELL   PHILLIPS, 

two  of  them,  Squire  Kcyes  and  Squire  Hoar — father 
of  the  present  Senator  Hoar.  He  charged  the  sin 
of  slavery  upon  the  religion  of  the  country,  with  its 
twenty  thousand  pulpits,  all  dumb,  or  advocating  the 
iniquity.  The  church,  he  said,  had  accused  the  Gar- 
risonians  of  infidelity,  and  there  was  some  truth  in 
it  ;  they  were  infidels  to  a  religion  that  sustained 
human  bondage.  As  for  the  State,  the  curse  of 
every  honest  man  should  be  upon  its  Constitution  ; 
could  he  say  to  Jefferson,  Adams,  and  Hancock, 
after  the  experience  of  fifty  years  :  "  Look  upon  the 
fruits  of  your  work  !"  they  would  bid  him  crush  the 
parchment  beneath  his  feet. 

These  utterances  were  worse  than  those  of  the 
year  before,  and  so  the  next  week  the  conservatives 
in  the  Lyceum  began  to  debate  Phillips's  lecture  and 
to  denounce  him.  Word  had  been  sent  to  Phillips 
by  his  friends,  and  he  came  into  the  meeting  while 
Squire  Keyes  was  jeering  at  him  for  "  leading  cap 
tive  silly  women."  Squire  Hoar  then  took  up  the 
testimony  against  the  audacious  "  stripling"  who 
had  proclaimed  such  monstrous  doctrines,  compli 
mented  him  on  his  eloquence,  but  warned  the  young 
against  such  insidious  and  exciting  oratory.  About 
nine  o'clock  Phillips  stepped  forward  from  the  rear 
of  the  hall  and  asked  permission  to  reply.  He  said  : 

"I  do  not  care  for  criticisms  upon  my  manner  of  assailing 
slavery.  In  a  struggle  for  life  it  is  hardly  fair  for  men  who  are 
lolling  at  ease  to  remark  (hat  the  limbs  of  the  combatants  are 
not  arranged  in  classic  postures.  I  agree  with  the  last  speaker 
that  this  is  a  serious  subject  ;  had  it  been  otherwise  I  should  not 
devote  my  life  to  it.  Stripling  as  I  am,  1  but  echo  the  voice  of 
the  ages,  of  our  venerable  forefathers— of  statesmen,  poets, 
philosophers.  The  gentleman  has  painted  the  dangers  to  life, 
liberty,  and  happiness  that  would  be  the  consequence  of  doing 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  l6l 

right.  These  dangers  now  exist  by  law  at  the  South.  Liberty 
may  be  bought  at  too  dear  a  price  ;  if  I  cannot  have  it  except'by 
sin,  I  reject  it.  But  I  cannot  so  blaspheme  God  as  to  doubt  my 
safety  in  obeying  Him.  The  sanctions  of  English  law  are  with 
me  ;  but  if  I  tread  the  dust  of  law  beneath  my  feet  and  enter  the 
Holy  of  Holies,  what  do  I  find  written  there  ?  4  Thou  shalt  not 
deliver  unto  his  master  the  servant  which  is  escaped  to  thee  ; 
he  shall  dwell  with  you,  even  among  you.'  I  throw  myself  then 
on  the  bosom  of  Infinite  Wisdom.  Even  the  heathen  will  tell 
you,  '  Let  justice  be  done  though  the  heavens  fall  ;'  and  the  old 
reformer  answered  when  warned  against  the  danger  of  going  to 
Rome,  '  It  is  not  necessary  that  I  should  live  ;  it  is  necessary 
that  I  go  to  Rome.'  But  now  our  pulpits  are  silent — whoever 
heard  this  subject  presented  until  it  was  done  by  '  silly  women  ' 
and  '  striplings  '  ?  The  first  speaker  accused  me  of  ambition  ; 
let  me  tell  him  that  ambition  chooses  a  smoother  path  to  fame. 
And  to  you,  my  young  friends,  who  have  been  cautioned  against 
exciting  topics  and  advised  to  fold  your  hands  in  selfish  ease, 
I  would  say,  Not  so — throw  yourselves  upon  the  altar  of  some 
noble  cause  !  To  rise  in  the  morning  only  to  eat  and  drink,  and 
gather  gold — that  is  a  life  not  worth  living.  Enthusiasm  is  the 
life  of  the  soul." 

Never  was  an  oratorical  triumph  more  complete. 
The  audience  applauded  heartily  ;  the  meeting, 
which  was  to  vote  Phillips  down,  was  hastily  ad 
journed,  and  from  that  day  forward  he  was  the 
favorite  speaker  in  Concord,  it  was  in  the  next  year 
(March,  1845)  that  he  gave  the  thrilling  address  there 
which  Thoreau  has  commemorated,  containing  a 
prayer  which  concluded,  says  Thoreau,  "  Not  like 
the  Thanksgiving  proclamations,  with  '  God  save  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,'  but  with  '  God 
dash  it  into  a  thousand  pieces,  till  there  shall  not 
remain  a  fragment  on  which  a  man  who  dare  not  tell 
his  name  can  stand. '  '  The  reference  here  was  to 
Frederick  Douglass,  who  had  then  newly  escaped 
from  slaver)'-,  who  in  Boston  was  in  momentary 


1 62  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

danger  of  arrest  and  rendition,   and   whose  liberty 
was  conditioned  upon  his  denial  of  his  identity. 

This  was  the  day  of  extreme  statements,  for  in 
that  same  year — 1845 — Emerson  said,  in  an  emanci 
pation  address  at  Waltham  (one  of  his  earliest)  : 

"  If  the  Creator  of  the  negro  has  given  him  up  to  stand  as  a 
victim  of  the  white  man  beside  him,  to  stoop  under  his  pack  and 
to  bleed  under  his  whip — if  that  be  the  doctrine,  then  I  say,  '  If 
He  has  given  up  his  cause,  then  He  has  also  given  up  mine,  who 
feel  his  wrong  and  ours,  who  in  our  hearts  must  curse  the 
Creator  who  has  undone  him.'  "  l 

Of  course  in  these  utterances  Emerson  did  not 
mean  to  curse  the  Creator,  nor  did  Phillips  mean 
to  curse  civil  government.  In  both  cases  it  was  the 
pretence  of  God  and  the  pretence  of  law  that  was 
denounced — that  worst  form  of  atheism,  which  wor 
ships  the  devil  in  the  name  of  Christ.  The  real  in 
fidels  of  those  days  were  in  the  churches,  and  the 
real  anarchists  were  in  office  at  Washington. 

All  professional  lecturers  meet  with  some  humor 
ous  and  comical  incidents  which  relieve  some  of  the 
drudgery  of  their  work.  Perhaps  a  larger  propor 
tion  fell  to  the  lot  of  Anti-Slavery  lecturers  than  to 
others.  Certainly  Mr.  Phillips  had  a  keen  sense  of 
humor.  Shortly  after  the  Concord  episode  he  was 
invited  to  lecture  before  a  Lyceum  in  a  neighboring 
country  town.  Arriving  at  the  place  he  went  di 
rectly  to  the  church  in  which  the  Lyceum  was  as 
sembled,  and  was  ushered  into  a  pew  with  the  Presi 
dent  and  Secretary.  The  latter  asked  him  if  he  had 
brought  his  lecture  on  Europe,  and  he  replied  that 
he  had.  This  information  the  Secretary  imparted 


"  Recollections  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  by  F.  B.  Sanborn  (MS.). 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  163 

to  the  President,  who  received  it  with  an  intimation 
of  displeasure,  and  he,  turning  to  Mr.  Phillips, 
asked  :  "  Did  we  invite  you  here  to  lecture  on 
Europe?"  "No/*  replied  Mr.  Phillips,  "you  in 
vited  me  here  to  lecture.  The  subject  was  not  speci 
fied.  I  told  the  Secretary  that  I  brought  my  lec 
ture  on  Europe  with  me.  I  carry  all  my  lectures  in 
my  head."  "  Didn't  the  Secretary  write  to  you 
that  we  wanted  a  lecture  on  slavery  ?" 

"  No,  he  did  not,"  rejoined  Mr.  Phillips.  The 
somewhat  irate  President  took  his  official  seat,  and 
calling  the  meeting  to  order  announced  that  the 
Lyceum  had  instructed  its  Secretary  to  write  to  Mr. 
Phillips  to  lecture  to  them  upon  the  subject  of 
slavery,  and  added,  "  There's  Mr.  Phillips,  and  he 
says  he  was  not  invited  to  lecture  on  any  specified 
topic  ;  and  there's  the  Secretary."  Whereupon  the 
Secretary  responded  :  "  I  wasn't  going  to  have  Anti- 
Slavery  crammed  down  my  throat  !"  "  Nor,"  re 
joined  the  President,  "are  we  going  to  have  you 
crammed  down  our  throats  !" 

The  members  of  the  Lyceum  then  discussed  the 
question,  and  by  a  large  majority  decided  to  have 
an  Anti-Slavery  lecture.  The  most  amusing  part  of 
the  discussion,  to  him,  was  a  remark  made  by  a 
member  that  he  "  supposed  Mr.  Phillips  would  as 
lief  lecture  on  slavery  if  he  were  paid  the  same."  ' 


Recollections  of  Miss  Mary  Grew  (MS.). 


VIII. 

THE  "  COVENANT  WITH  DEATH." 

IN  following  to  an  end  the  Concord  incident  we 
have  stolen  a  march  upon  time.  We  must  now  re 
trace  our  steps  and  go  back  to  the  autumn  of  1842, 
and  to  the  succeeding  months,  in  order  to  observe 
certain  occurrences  of  a  broader  and  more  essential 
nature — events  in  which  Mr.  Phillips  was  far  more 
vitally  concerned. 

In  October  a  mulatto  named  Laiiinej:_cam e  to 
Boston  from  Norfolk,  Va.  He  was  arrested  and 
thrown  into  jail  on  a  charge  of  theft.  Presently  it 
was  shown  that  he  was  indeed  a  thief — he  had  stolen 
himself  !  Friends  rallied  to  his  side  and  demanded 
a  trial  by  jury.  "  No,"  replied  Judge  Shaw,  "  he 
is  a  fugitive  slave.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  authorizes  the  owner  of  such  an  one  to  arrest 
him  in  any  State  to  which  he  may  have  fled." 

The  city  was  wild  with  excitement.  The  Aboli 
tionists  thronged  to  Faneuil  Hall — the  trysting-place 
of  liberty.  It  wras  on  a  Sunday  night.  No  matter. 
Did  not  Christ  maintain  that  acts  of  mercy  were  acts 
of  worship  ?  And  what  act  of  mercy  so  supreme  as 
the  rescue  of  a  man  from  slave-hounds  ?  Mr.  Phil 
lips  spoke.  Referring  to  Judge  Shaw's  ruling,  he 
exclaimed  :  "  We  presume  to  believe  the  Bible  out- 


Sec  the  ruling  in  the  Massachusetts  court  records  of  the  period. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  165 

weighs  the  statute-book.  When  I  look  on  those 
crowded  thousands  and  see  them  trample  on  their 
consciences  and  on  the  rights  of  their  fellowmen,  at 
the  bidding  of  a  piece  of  parchment,  I  say,  my  curse 
be  on  the  Constitution  of  these  United  States  I"1 
This  was  his  first  direct  collision  with  the  Consti 
tution.  The  case  of  Latimer  opened  his  eyes  to  a 
clear  perception  of  the  fact  that  in  advocating  the 
rights  of  the  blacks  his  real  antagonist  was  the 
Union.  It  was  a  moment  like  that  when  Luther 
realized  that  in  undertaking  to  reform  the  Romish 
Church  he  was  assailing  the  Papacy  ;  like  that  when 
the  Revolutionary  sires  were  startled  to  find  that  in 
defending  their  charters  they  were  committing 
treason — an  earthquake  experience  full  of  destiny. 
But  as  Luther  composed  himself  and  said  :  "  Here 
I  must  stand  ;  God  help  me,  I  can  do  nothing  else  !" 
as  the  fathers  said  :  "  If  this  be  revolution,  let  it 
come  !"  so  he  said  :  "  If  I  must  choose  between  the 
Union  and  liberty,  then  I  choose  liberty  first,  Union 
afterward  !" 

Happily  Latimer  was  saved,  an  offer  being  made 
and  accepted  to  pay  four  hundred  dollars  for  his  re 
lease,  with  free  papers  ;  whereupon  the  "  chattel" 
became  a  man,  and  the  free  papers  were  surrendered 
instead  of  the  fugitive.2  But  ,from  this  moment 
Wendell  Phillips  began  to  denounce  the  Constitution, 
that  old  Pro-Slavery  Constitution  which  the  Civil 
War  so  magnificently  amended.  He  went  further. 
He  personally  seceded  from  the  Union  and  refused 
all  voluntary  action  under  it.  His  law  office — this 
he  closed,  for  an  attorney  had  to  take  an  oath  to 


1  ViJe  Liberator,  vol.  xii.,  p.  178.  2  /£.,  p.  205. 


l66  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

support  the  Constitution.  The  ballot-box — this  he 
forswore,  for  a  voter  was  an  active  participant  in 
governmental  affairs.  Thus  he  stood — until  the  out 
break  of  the  Rebellion,  which  changed  the  whole  situ 
ation — a  man  without  a  country.  He  became  a 
political  Ishmael,  his  hand  against  every  man  and 
every  man's  hand  against  him.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  his  wisdom,  no  one  can  deny  his  self- 
sacrifice.  It  was  an  act  of  conscience  as  sublime  as 
Luther's,  as  heroic  as  the  penmanship  of  John  Han 
cock  on  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  which 
George  III.  read  and  understood  across  the  Atlantic. 

Nor  did  Mr.  Phillips  take  this  step  in  a  passion. 
He  took  it  calmly,  soberly,  as  he  did  everything 
else,  and  with  a  perfect  knowledge  of  what  and  all 
it  meant.  He  deliberately  counted  the  cost.  "  He 
chose  rather  to  suffer  affliction  with  the  people  of 
God  than  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  sin  for  a  season" 
—a  modern  version  of  Moses  quitting  the  palace  of 
Pharaoh  for  the  brick-yard.  The  contemporary 
world  hissed  both,  but  heaven  and  history  commend. 
Anyhow,  what  is  the  opinion  of  man  compared  with 
a  good  conscience  and  the  approbation  of  God  ? 

When  he  came  to  study  the  Constitution,  and,  more 
significantly,  when  he  analyzed  it  in  the  light  of  its 
consistent  interpretation  for  half  a  century,  he 
straightway  discovered  that  it  was  a  "  covenant 
with  death  and  an  agreement  with  hell."  It  erected 
the  negation  of  God  into  a  system  of  government. 
For  consider,  here  was  the  clause  which  legalized 
the  slave-trade  for  twenty  years  from  the  date  of  its 
adoption  ;  here  was  the  clause  which  allowed  the 
slave-masters  to  count  three  fifths  of  their  slaves  in 
the  basis  of  national  representation  ;  and  here  was 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  167 

the  clause  which  made  provision  for  the  return  of 
fugitives  throughout  the  Union — a  trinity  of  evil  as 
satanic  as  the  orthodox  trinity  was  divine.  Then, 
when  he  lifted  his  eyes  from  the  parchment,  and 
looked  back  into  the  Convention  which  framed  it,  he 
saw — what  ?  Why,  that  these  provisions  expressed 
the  exact  purpose  of  its  authors.1  And  when  he 
glanced  at  the  successive  administrations  since  that 
time,  at  the  decisions  of  the  courts,  at  the  practice 
of  the  country,  at  the  existing  situation,  he  was 
driven  to  the  conclusion  that  consistent  Abolitionism 
was  impossible  under  that  document,  and  that  slavery 
was  intrenched  in  the  fundamental  law  of  the  na 
tion. 

Accordingly,  he  was  indignant  but  not  surprised 
to  observe  that  the  liberty  of  speech  and  the  freedom 
of  the  press  were  not  tolerated  in  the  Southern  half 
of  the  Union,  and  were  only  exercised  in  the  North 
ern  half  at  the  peril  of  the  free  speakers  and  free 
printers  ;  that  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  was  denied 
to  any  colored  man  in  any  State  who  might  be 
claimed  as  a  slave  ; 2  that  the  right  of  petition  was 
struck  down  on  the  floor  of  Congress  ;3  that  slavery 
was  declared  to  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land. 

Mr.  Phillips  was  amazed  at  his  own  blindness  in 
not  sooner  discovering  all  this.  Well,  he  saw  it 
now,  and  without  waiting  to  ask  what  others  would 
do,  he  did  as  his  Puritan  ancestors  had  done  under 
the  despotism  of  Charles  I.  and  Archbishop  Laud- 
he  came  out. 


1  Vide  the  Proceedings  of  the  Convention.     Compare  "  The  Consti 
tution  a  Pro-Slavery  Compact,"  by  Wendell  Phillips. 

2  Case  of  Prigg  vs.  the  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania. 

3  Ante^  p.  153. 


168  ,  WENDELL   PIIILLirS. 

Soon  he  was  gratified  to  find  that  he  was  not 
alone.  Others  of  the  Abolitionists  saw  what  he  saw, 
felt  as  he  felt,  acted  as  he  acted.  There  was  a  band  of 
come-outers,  among  them  his  friends  and  co-laborers, 
Garrison  and  Quincy.  The  months  that  followed 
were  weary,  anxious,  tumultuous.  There  was  a 
pang  in  every  hour.  This  question  was  the  topic  of 
debate  at  every  Anti-Slavery  meeting,  in  every  Anti- 
Slavery  society.  In  1843  the  Massachusetts  Society 
adopted  "  come-outer"  resolutions.1  In  1844  the 
New  England  and  National  societies  did  likewise.2 
One  by  one  the  kindred  organizations  throughout 
the  free  States  wheeled  into  line.3  Soon  the  entire 
Garrisonian  phalanx  presented  a  united  front.  In 
the  consciences  and  the  platforms  of  these  bodies  the 
Pro-Slavery  Union  was  dissolved.  But  these  few 
sentences  coldly,  feebly  summarize  convulsive  de 
bates  and  torturing  deliberations.  How  can  Guten 
berg's  types  depict  heart  agonies  ?  Remember  what 
that  old  Constitution  was  :  the  ark  of  the  political 
covenant,  as  sacred  in  the  reverence  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  as  its  prototype  was  in  the  feelings  of  the 
ancient  Israelites.  Reflect  upon  the  prejudices  of 
education  and  habit  which  these  men  had  to  conquer 
in  themselves.  Recall  the  rage  which  their  renunci 
ation  and  denunciation  provoked  in  the  North  as 
well  as  in  the  South,  the  blasphemy  they  were 
charged  with,  and  then  estimate  the  depth  of  their 
regard  for  those  who  were  bound,  and  their  passion 
for  liberty  ! 

They  were  true  to  their  convictions.     They  cried 


Liberator,  vol.  xiii.,  p.  19.  2  //$.,  vol.  xiv.,  pp.  82  and  91. 

"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  338. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  169 

aloud  and  spared  not.  The  Anti-Slavery  organs  in 
Boston  and  in  New  York  displayed  in  bold  head-lines 
the  obnoxious  motto  :  "  No  Union  with  Slave-hold 
ers."  The  resolutions  at  Anti-Slavery  meetings 
bristled  with  aggressive  defiance. 

Meantime  those  Abolitionists  who  had  withdrawn 
in  1 840  from  the  Garrisonian  organizations,  because 
they  could  not  believe  that  a  coat  and  a  petticoat 
had  equal  rights,  now  made  haste  to  identify  them 
selves  with  a  political  movement  just  started,  and 
called  the  "  Liberty  party."  1  This  party  partici 
pated  in  State  and  national  elections  with  all  the 
machinery  of  Conventions  and  candidates.  It  was 
small  but  well  organized,  earnest  and  alert.  Pro 
fessedly  it  was  actuated  by  the  same  motives  as  the 
Garrisonians.  In  reality  it  was 

" cabined,  cribbed,  confined,  bound  in 

To  saucy  doubts  and  fears," 

by  the  inevitable  limitations  of  politics.  More,  the 
"  Liberty  party,"  as  an  Anti-Slavery  party,  was 
fatally  hampered  by  the  compromises  of  the  Consti 
tution.  It  could  only  propose  such  measures  as  the 
Constitution  would  sanction.  When  the  National 
Government  had  exhausted  its  whole  power,  that 
which  the  Abolitionists  hated  and  meant  to  destroy, 
the  slave  system,  would  remain  intact.  Under  a  Pro- 
Slavery  Constitution  what  chance  had  an  Anti- 
Slavery  crusade  ? 

Recognizing  this  difficulty,  the  Liberty  party 
claimed  sometimes  that  the  Constitution  had  been 
fatally  misinterpreted,  that  the  text  was  blameless, 

1  Vide  Richard  H.  Dana's  article  on  the  Republican  party,  in 
Johnson's  New  Universal  Cycl.<firdia,  in  loco. 


I/O  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

that  it  was,  in  fact,  an  Abolition  document.  This  was 
the  view  of  William  Goodell,  and  Gerrit  Smith,  and 
George  B.  Cheever — honest  and  able  men.  At  other 
times,  and  by  other  exponents,  it  was  asserted  that 
the  Constitution  could  be  amended  and  made  Anti- 
Slavery  if  it  were  not  so.  At  all  times  the  political 
Abolitionists  derided  and  belittled  the  moral-suasion 
school  and  cried  for  action.  Many  haters  of  slavery 
became  impatient  and  wanted  to  grapple  the  evil  in 
a  hand-to-hand  encounter — gladiator  fashion — with 
the  ballot-box  for  an  arena.  With  revolution  in  the 
air  they  esteemed  an  agitation  that  was  educative 
and  moral  alone  as  inadequate.  This  it  was  that 
led  Whittier  and  Sumner  and  Wilson  and  Hale  and 
Chase  to  adopt  political  expedients. 

All  through  these  years  a  fierce  controversy  was 
carried  on  between  these  two  wings  of  the  Abolition 
host — the  moral  suasionists  and  the  political  action- 
ists,  each  appealing  for  recruits  on  the  ground  of 
superior  facilities,  each  emphasizing  the  defects  of 
the  other,  but  both  doing  a  grand  work  for  truth 
and  righteousness,  though  in  different,  and,  as  it  often 
appeared,  antagonistic  ways. 

Mr.  Phillips,  of  course,  participated  in  the  discus 
sions  of  the  hour.  Indeed,  he  was  preternaturally 
active — a  White  Plume  of  Navarre  in  this  Ivry.  It 
was  largely  owing  to  his  skill  as  an  organizer,  and 
even  more  to  his  eloquence  on  the  platform,  that  the 
Garrisonians  had  been  held  together,  despite  the 
disintegrating  influence  of  the  Liberty  party,  and 
were  led  to  take  and  hold  the  tremendous  posi 
tion  of  disunion.  In  1845  ne  wrote  and  published 
an  argument  entitled^  "  The  Constitution  a  Pro- 
Slavery  Compact."  With  masterly  and  unanswcr- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  I/I 

able  logic  he  proved — what  everybody  now  admits, 
and  what  the  amendments,  which  the  Civil  War 
made  possible,  conclusively  avouch — that  the  Consti 
tution  as  it  then  stood  was  the  Gibraltar  of  human 
bondage.  He  also  published  anonymously  in  the 
same  year  a  pamphlet,  "  Can  Abolitionists  Vote  or 
take  Office  under  the  United  States  Constitution  ?" 
Here  he  marshalled  the  pros  and  cons  in  successive 
order  under  the  title  of  objections  and  answers. 
The  brochure  is  a  model  of  argumentative  skill,  and 
is  full  of  wit  and  pat  applications.  As  it  was  in 
tended  to  defend  and  elucidate  his  position  as  a 
"  come-outer, "  let  us  blow  the  dust  from  it  and 
sample  it  ;  no  danger  of  falling  asleep  in  the  task  ! 

"  My  object,"  he  says,  "  in  becoming  a  disunionist  is  to  free 
the  slave,  and  meantime  to  live  a  consistent  life.  I  want  men 
to  understand  me.  And  I  submit  that  the  body  of  the  Roman 
people  understood  better  and  felt  more  earnestly  the  struggle 
between  the  people  and  the  princes,  when  the  little  band  of 
democrats  left  the  city  and  encamped  on  Mons  Sacer,  outside, 
than  while  they  remained  mixed  up  and  voting  with  their  mas 
ters.  Dissolution  is  our  Mons  Sacer.  God  grant  it  may  become 
equally  famous  in  the  world's  history  as  the  spot  where  the  right 
triumphed." 

To  the  objection  that  his  course  was  Pharisaical, 
he  replied  : 

"  Because  we  refuse  to  aid  a  wrongdoer  in  his  sin  we  by  no 
means  proclaim  that  we  think  our  whole  character  better  than 
his.  It  is  neither  pharisaical  to  have  opinions  nor  presumptuous 
to  guide  our  lives  by  them.  He  would  be  a  strange  preacher 
who  should  set  out  to  reform  his  circle  by  joining  in  all  their 
sins.  This  reminds  me  of  the  tipsy  Duke  of  Norfolk,  who,  see 
ing  a  drunken  friend  in  the  gutter,  hiccoughed  :  '  My  dear 
fellow,  I  can't  help  you  out,  but  I'll  do  better— I'll  lie  down  by 
your  side  ! '  " 


1 72  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

In  noticing  the  objection  that  by  the  payment  of 
taxes  he  recognized  and  supported  the  State  practi 
cally  while  renouncing  it  in  theory,  he  answered  : 

"  We  are  responsible  only  so  far  as  our  ability  and  willing 
ness  go.  Any  evil  which  springs  from  our  acts  incidentally, 
without  our  ability  or  will,  we  are  not  responsible  for.  Such  re 
sponsibility  reminds  me  of  that  principle  of  Turkish  law  which 
Dr.  Clark  mentions  in  his  travels,  and  which  they  call  '  homicide 
by  an  intermediate  cause.'  The  case  he  relates  is  this  :  A 
young  man  in  love  poisoned  himself  because  the  girl's  father 
refused  his  consent  to  the  marriage.  The  Cadi  sentenced  the 
father  to  pay  a  fine  of  eighty  dollars,  saying  :  '  If  you  had  not 
had  a  daughter,  this  young  man  would  not  have  loved  ;  if  he 
had  not  loved,  he  had  never  been  disappointed  ;  if  he  had  not 
been  disappointed,  he  would  not  have  taken  poison.'  It  was  the 
same  Cadi,  possibly,  who  sentenced  the  island  of  Samos  to  pay 
for  the  wrecking  of  a  vessel,  because,  if  the  island  had  not  been 
in  the  way,  the  vessel  would  not  have  been  wrecked  !  " 

He  thus  refers  to  the  assertion  that  the  Constitu 
tion,  though  Pro-Slavery  now  might  be  amended, 
and  that  he  could  vote  meanwhile  in  that  hope  : 

"  It  is  necessary  to  swear  to  support  it  as  it  is.  What  it  may 
become  we  know  not.  We  speak  of  it  as  it  is  and  repudiate  it 
as  it  is.  We  will  not  brand  it  as  Pro-Slavery  after  it  has  ceased 
to  be  so.  This  objection  to  our  position  reminds  me  of  Miss 
Martineau's  story  of  the  little  boy  who  hurt  himself  and  sat  cry 
ing  on  the  sidewalk.  '  Don't  cry,'  said  a  friend,  '  it  won't  hurt 
you  to-morrow.'  '  Well,  then,'  whimpered  the  child,  '  I  won't 
cry  to-morrow  !  '  ' 

To  the  common  statement  that  his  position  was 
that  of  a  hot-head  and  a  zealot,  he  responded  : 

"  History,  from  the  earliest  Christians  downward,  is  full  of  in 
stances  of  men  who  refused  all  connection  with  government  and 
all  the  influences  which  office  could  bestow  rather  than  deny 
their  principles  or  aid  in  wrong-doing.  Sir  Thomas  More  need 
never  have  mounted  the  scaffold,  had  he  only  consented  to  take 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  1/3 

the  oath  of  supremacy.  He  had  only  to  tell  a  lie  with  solemnity, 
as  we  are  asked  to  do,  and  he  might  not  only  have  saved  his 
life,  but,  as  the  trimmers  of  his  day  would  have  told  him, 
doubled  his  influence.  Pitt  resigned  his  place  as  Prime  Minister 
of  England  rather  than  break  faith  with  the  Catholics  of  Ire 
land.  Should  I  not  resign  a  ballot  rather  than  break  faith  with 
the  slave  ?" 

Further,  and  in  the  same  connection,  he  adds  : 

"  An  act  of  conscience  is  always  a  grand  act.  Whether  right 
or  wrong  it  represents  the  best  self  of  our  nature.  While  an 
under-clerk  in  the  War  Office,  Granville  Sharp,  that  patriarch 
of  the  Anti-Slavery  enterprise  in  England,  sympathized  with 
America  in  our  struggle  for  independence.  Orders  reached  his 
office  to  ship  munitions  of  war  to  the  revolted  Colonies.  If  his 
hand  had  entered  the  account  of  such  a  cargo  it  would  have  con 
tracted,  in  his  eyes,  the  stain  of  innocent  blood.  To  avoid  this 
pollution,  he  resigned  his  place  and  means  of  subsistence  at  a 
period  of  life  when  he  could  no  longer  hope  to  find  lucrative 
employment.  As  the  thoughtful  clerk  of  the  War  Office  takes 
down  his  hat  from  the  peg  where  it  had  hung  for  twenty  years, 
methinks  I  hear  one  of  our  critics  cry  out :  '  Friend  Sharp,  you 
are  absurdly  scrupulous  ;  you  may  innocently  aid  Government 
in  doing  wrong.'  While  the  Liberty  party  yelps  at  his  heels  : 
*  My  dear  sir,  you  are  losing  your  influence  ! '  And  indeed  it  is 
melancholy  to  reflect  how,  from  that  moment,  the  mighty  under- 
clerk  of  the  War  Office  (!)  dwindled  into  the  mere  Granville 
Sharp  of  history  !  the  man  of  whom  Mansfield  and  Hargrave 
were  content  to  learn  law,  and  Wilberforce  philanthropy." 

These  are  hap-hazard  snatches  made  in  turning  the 
pages  of  Mr.  Phillips's  "Anti-Slavery  Catechism." 
Those  who  would  get  a  clear  insight  into  the  moral 
situation  in  the  'forties  should  read  it  from  cover  to 
cover.  It  is  more  than  a  polemic— it  is  a  picture. 


IX. 

INFIDELITY   IN   THE  'FORTIES. 

AT  the  period  now  under  review,  with  one  or  two 
small  but  honorable  exceptions,  like  the  Freewill 
Baptists  and  the  Free  Presbyterians,  the  churches 
were  all  the  apologists  and  often  the  defenders  ol 
man-stealing1.  Thus  the  Christianity  of  America 
was  three  thousand  years  behind  the  Judaism  of 
Moses,  which  denounced  man-stealing.  Individual 
pulpits  and  individual  church-members,  shining 
lights  in  this  dreary  midnight,  were  found  in  all  the 
historic  denominations  refusing  to  quench  their 
beams.  But  exceptions  do  not  break — they  prove 
the  rule.  As  organized  bodies,  the  churches  ad 
mitted  slave-holders  to  their  communion,  installed 
them  in  their  pulpits,  and  screened  their  sin  with 
palliative  resolutions.  At  the  same  time  they 
branded  the  Abolitionists  as  fanatics,  meddling  with 
what  did  not  concern  them,  and  anathematized  them 
as  infidels,  assaulting  the  administration  of  Provi 
dence. 

For  example,  the  Rev.  Wilbur  Fisk,  the  leader  of 
New  England  Methodism,  declared  that  "  the  gen 
eral  rule  of  Christianity  not  only  permits,  but  in  sup- 
posable  circumstances  enjoins  a  continuance  of  the 
Master's  authority."  A  New  England  Methodist 
bishop  maintained  that  the  right  to  hold  slaves  is 
founded  on  this  dictum:  "'Therefore  all  things 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  175 

whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do 
ye  even  so  to  them.'  ' 

The  Inquisitors  used  to  torture  their  victims  into 
confessing  whatever  they  chose  to  extort.  But  the 
worst  instance  of  Inquisitorial  torture  on  record  is 
this  which  wrings  a  justification  of  slavery  from  the 
Golden  Rule.  Oh  sapient  commentator,  go  into 
history  as  Bishop  Columbus,  for  you  discovered 
what  no  one  else  ever  dreamed  of,  that  the  Golden 
Rule,  which  seems  to  teach  that  men  should  do  as 
they  would  be  done  unto,  teaches  instead  the  right 
of  men  to  do  as  they  would  not  be  done  unto  ! 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Wayland,  President  of  the  Brown 
University,  the  Coryphaeus  of  the  Baptists,  pub 
lished  a  book  in  which  he  taught  that  "  the  people 
of  the  North  are  in  such  relation  to  the  people  of  the 
South  that  they  ought  not  to-  agitate  the  question  of 
slavery,  and  that  it  would  be  an  act  of  bad  faith  for 
Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Co 
lumbia."  Among  the  Congregationalists  Professor 
Moses  Stuart,  at  Andover  Seminary,  and  President 
Lord,  at  Dartmouth  College,  were  the  thick  and 
thin  defenders  of  slavery  ;  while  their  most  prominent 
and  influential  pulpits  were  occupied  by  pastors  who 
preached  Christ  at  the  North  so  as  not  to  offend  the 
devil  at  the  South.  The  Presbyterians,  the  Epis 
copalians,  the  Unitarians,  the  Universalists,  the 
Quakers,  wide  apart  as  the  poles,  and  swearing 
prayers  at  one  another,  on  other  points,  were  cor 
dially  at  one  in  this,  and  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
Southern  "  form  of  economic  subordination"  were 
drawn  into  a  brotherhood  of  wonder  and  delight. 

If  such  was  the  feeling  among  the  churches  in  the 
free  States,  the  situation  in  the  slave  States  may  be 


176  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

imagined.  There,  with  absolutely  no  exceptions, 
pastors  and  -laymen  preached  and  practised  the 
Gospel  according  to  St.  John — C.  Calhoun.  A  cer 
tain  prominent  pulpiteer  of  South  Carolina  died  one 
day — for  even  slave-holding  saints  were  not  immortal 
—his  estate  was  sold  at  auction,  and  was  advertised 
in  the  following  terms  : 

"  A  plantation  on  and  in  Wateree  Swamp  (a  good 
place  for  a  slave  plantation)  ;  a  library,  chiefly  theo 
logical  ;  twenty-seven  negroes,  some  of  them  very 
prime  ;  two  mules,  one  horse,  and  an  old  wagon." 

Well,  in  these  circumstances,  as  the  Abolitionists 
had  not  hesitated  to  attack  the  State,  so  neither  did 
they  hesitate  to  attack  the  Church.  They  recog 
nized  in  these  twain  one  flesh.  It  was  the  Siamese 
twins  over  again.  The  State  was  Chang  and  the 
Church  was  Eng.  Many  of  the  Anti-Slavery  apos 
tles,  who  had  set  out  in  orthodox  standing,  were  dis 
gusted  into  unbelief,  Garrison  himself  among  the 
rest.  Mr.  Phillips  held  fast  to  his  ancestral  faith. 
He  denounced  the  Church  as  it  existed  precisely  as 
he  denounced  the  State.  But  he  saved  his  Christian 
creed  by  making  a  distinction  which  will  bear  ex 
amination,  and  which  may  be  needed  again  some 
time.  He  distinguished  between  Christianity  and 
Churchianity.  While  he  held  that  the  one  was 
divine,  he  perceived  that  the  other  was  human. 
Christ  was  God  manifest.  The  Church  was  an  insti 
tution  which  accepted  so  much  of  His  spirit  and 
works  as  it  could  or  would  embody.  As  Pharisee- 
ism,  when  the  Nazarine  was  in  Judea,  had  formal- 


1  See  this  whole  subject  treated   in   detail  in  "  Garrison  and  his 
Times, "passim,  but  particularly  in  chap.  xiv. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.         .  1/7 

izcd  the  life  out  of  religion  and  represented  the  show, 
not  the  substance  of  the  divine  in  the  human,  so 
now  he  held  that  the  nominal  Christianity  around 
about  him  was  a  body  out  of  which  the  soul  had 
gone.  And  he  comforted  himself  with  the  reflection 
that  the  true  Church,  always  and  everywhere,  is 
composed  of  those  who  are  likest  and  nearest  to 
Christ.  Hence  he  made  a  solitude  in  his  own  heart 
and  set  up  an  altar  and  worshipped  there  apart.1 
Meanwhile  he  drew  his  ideals  and  borrowed  his 
methods  from  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  "in  whom  lives 
the  moral  earnestness  of  the  world."2  He  said: 
'  The  men  who  have  learned  of  him  most  closely— 
Paul,  Luther,  Wesley — have  marked  their  own  age 
and  moulded  for  good  all  after-time."  3 

Holding  these  views  he  was  nothing  disturbed  by 
the  charges  of  infidelity  with  which  the  churches 
pelted  him,  no  more  than  he  was  by  the  State's  in 
dictment  of  him  as  a  traitor.  Treason  to  a  Pro- 
Slavery  Constitution  and  infidelity  to  a  Pro-Slavery 
religion  he  considered  the  highest  patriotism  and 
the  truest  Christianity.  As  James  Otis  thundered 
against  the  despot  in  England,  so  he  thundered 
against  the  tyrant  in  America.  As  the  Master  Him 
self  smote  Phariseeism  eighteen  hundred  years  ago, 
so  he  "  spoke  daggers"  against  the  Pharisees  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Thus,  in  one  of  his  most  tren 
chant  speeches,  he  exclaimed  : 

"  When  the  pulpit  preached  slave-hunting,  and  the  law  bound 

1  For  Mr.  Phillips's  own  statement  of  his  religious  convictions, 
see  pp.  431-439- 

9  "  Sketches  and  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  by  Mrs. 
J.  T.  Sargent,  p.  81. 

3  ^  ,  P.  147- 


I  78  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

the  victim,  and  Society  said,  '  Amen  !  this  will  make  money,' 
we  were  'fanatics,'  'seditious,'  '  scorners  of  the  pulpit,' 
'  traitors.'  Genius  of  the  past,  drop  not  from  thy  tablets  one  of 
those  honorable  names  !  We  claim  them  all  as  our  surest  title- 
deeds  to  the  memory  and  gratitude  of  mankind.  We,  indeed, 
thought  man  more  than  Constitutions,  humanity  and  justice  of 
more  worth  than  law.  Seal  up  the  record  !  If  America  is 
proud  of  her  part,  let  her  rest  assured  we  are  not  ashamed  of 
ours  !"  l 


1  The  Sims  Anniversary,  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  75,  76. 


X. 

THE  AGITATOR. 

MR.  PHILLIPS  was  nnwjjifi  loneliest  mnn  on  the 
continent — almost  as  "  solitary"  as  £LJEL_R.  James's 
famous  horseman  in  the  novel.  _He  had  discarded 
the  State  and  had  left  the  Church,  not,  like  some  of 
his  friends,  because  of  any  disagreement  with  the 
philosophy  of  Government,  or  of  any  quarrel  with 
Christianity,  to  which  he  stoutly  adhered,  but  as  a 
protest  against  the  prostitution  of  State  and  Church 
to  wicked  ends  and  unholy  uses. 

In  reflecting  upon  his  ways  and  means  of  life  and 
usefulness  in  these  days,  he  was  obliged  to  acknowl 
edge  that  all  the  old  arenas  were  closed  against  him 
—  the  Court,  the  State  House,  the  Sanctuary.  Prov 
identially  he  had  an  independent  income,  so  that 
poverty  was  not  an  added  discomfort.  But  desiring 
and  fitted  to  influence  the  world  for  good,  along 
what  lines  should  he  exert  himself  ?  Surrounded  by 
mountainous  oppositions,  how  should  he  level  them  ? 
Face  to  face  with  triumphant  majorities  on  the  wrong 
side,  how  could  he  swing  them  over  to  the  right 
side? 

These  self-communings  led  Mr.  Phillips  to  invent 
and  adopt  his  characteristic  method  of  agitation. 
He  was  the  first  and  greatest  American  agitator. 
He  made  a  platform  outside  of  the  State,  outside  of 
the  Church,  untrammelled  by  any  limitations  save 


180  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

those  which  inhere  in  human  nature,  with  no  politi 
cal  and  no  ecclesiastical  creed  to  guard,  a  platform 
devoted  to  the  freest,  broadest,  most  critical  discus 
sion  of  questions  and  issues  ;  and  this  platform  he 
put  on  wheels  and  moved  from  Maine  to  California, 
himself  its  central  and  commanding  figure.  This 
was  his  place  of  business,  his  Senate,  his  Rialto,  his 
temple.  And  he  made  a  business  of  summoning 
parties,  sects,  trades,  social  usages,  for  judgment  to 
his  peripatetic  Faneuil  Hall.  Others  for  a  special 
purpose  dipped  into  agitation,  as  a  bather  wades 
into  the  surf,  and  then  returned  to  their  wonted 
vocations.  He  had  no  other  calling,  but  trod  the 
platform  as  king  in  a  realm  unique. 

Mr.  Phillips  expected  that  the  throne  he  first 
founded  and  filled  would  survive  him  and  find  an 
endless  succession  of  occupants,  because  he  claimed 
for  this  function  of  outside  observation  and  criticism 
an  essential  and  permanent  place  in  American  life, 
and  he  based  this  claim  upon  a  profound  philosophy. 
This  philosophy  embraced  five  cardinal  principles. 
Let  us  consider  these  principles,  for  a  clear  under 
standing  of  them  is  necessary  in  order  to  an  in 
telligent  appreciation  of  his  character  and  ca 
reer  : 

i.  He  believed  absolutely  in  the  supreme  power 
of  ideas.  Charge  these  with  the  dynamite  of  right 
eousness  and  conscience  and  they  would  blow  any 
and  every  form  of  opposition  to  atoms.  '  The  man 
who  launches  a  sound  argument,"  he  said,  "  who 
sets  on  two  feet  a  startling  fact  and  bids  it  travel 
across  the  continent,  is  just  ascertain  that  in  the  end 
he  will  change  the  government,  as  if  to  destroy  the 
Capitol  he  had  placed  gunpowder  under  the  Senate 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  l8l 

Chamber."1  Hence  he  discountenanced  force  in  a 
republic.  Why  resort  to  bayonets  when  ideas  are 
stronger  ?  He  had  no  patience  with  anarchy  and 
anarchists.  "  Agitation,"  said  he,  "  is  an  old  word 
with  a  new  meaning.  Sir  Robert  Peel  defined  it  to 
be  '  the  marshalling  of  the  conscience  of  a  nation  to 
mould  its  laws/  It  is  above-board — no  oath-bound 
secret  societies  like  those  of  old  times  in  Ireland  and 
of  the  Continent  to-day.  Its  means  are  reason  and 
arguments  ;  no  appeal  to  arms.  Wait  patiently  for 
the  slow  growth  of  public  opinion.  The  French 
man  is  angry  with  his  government  :  he  throws  up 
barricades  and  shots  his  guns  to  the  lips.  A  week's 
fury  drags  the  nation  ahead  a  hand-breadth,  reaction 
lets  it  settle  half-way  back  again.  As  Lord  Chester 
field  said,  a  hundred  years  ago  :  '  You  Frenchmen 
erect  barricades,  but  never  any  barriers. '  An  Eng 
lishman  is  dissatisfied  with  public  affairs  :  he  brings 
his  charges,  offers  his  proofs,  waits  for  prejudice  to 
relax,  for  public  opinion  to  inform  itself.  Then 
every  step  taken  is  taken  forever  ;  an  abuse  once 
removed  never  reappears  in  history. ' '  2 

2.  Next  to  ideas  Mr.  Phillips  believed  in  the  peo 
ple — in  the  average  common-sense  and  capacity  of 
the  millions.  He  never  wearied  of  appealing  from 
the  people  ill-informed  to  the  people  well-informed. 
This  was  the  root  of  his  republicanism,  and  the  reason 
why  he  claimed  for  the  most  ignorant  the  ballot  and 
the  school,  and  all  other  educational  appliances. 
Listen  to  him  on  this  point  : 

"  '  Vox  populi,  vox  Dei.'     I  do  not  mean  this  of  any  single 


1  Speech  on  Public  Opinion,  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  45. 

2  Lecture  on  Daniel  O'Connell,  see  Appendix. 


1 82  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

verdict  which  the  people  of  to-day  may  record.  In  time  the  self 
ishness  of  one  class  neutralizes  the  selfishness  of  another.  The 
people  always  mean  right,  and  in  the  end  they  will  do  right. 
I  believe  in  the  twenty  millions — not  the  twenty  millions  that 
live  now,  necessarily — to  arrange  this  question  of  slavery,  which 
priests  and  politicians  have  sought  to  keep  out  of  sight.  They 
have  it  locked  up  in  the  Senate  Chamber  ;  they  have  hidden  it 
behind  the  communion-table  ;  they  have  appealed  to  the  super 
stitious  and  idolatrous  veneration  for  the  State  and  the  Union 
to  avoid  this  question,  and  so  have  kept  it  from  the  influence  of 
the  great  democratic  tendencies  of  the  masses.  But  change  all 
this,  drag  it  from  its  concealment,  and  give  it  to  the  people  ; 
launch  it  on  the  age  and  all  is  safe.  It  will  find  a  safe  harbor. ' '  l 

3.  These  words  suggest  another  point  in  Mr.  Phil- 
lips's  philosophy  of  agitation,  viz.,  the  moral  timidity 
of  men  under  free  institutions.  He  remarks  : 

"  It  is  a  singular  fact  that,  the  freer  a  nation  becomes,  the 
more  utterly  democratic  the  form  of  its  institutions,  this  outside 
agitation,  this  pressure  of  public  opinion  to  direct  political  action, 
becomes  more  and  more  necessary.  The  general  judgment  is, 
that  the  freest  possible  government  produces  the  freest  possible 
men  and  women,  the  must  individual,  the  least  servile  to  the 
judgment  of  others.  But  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  any 
man  that  this  is  an  unreasonable  expectation,  and  that,  on  the 
contrary,  entire  equality  and  freedom  in  political  forms  almost 
inevitably  tend  to  make  the  individual  subside  into  the  mass  and 
lose  his  identity  in  the  general  whole.  Suppose  we  stood  -in 
England  to-night.  There  is  the  nobility  and  here  is  the  Church. 
There  is  the  trading-class  and  here  is  the  literary.  A  broad 
gulf  separates  the  four,  and  provided  a  member  of  either  can 
conciliate  his  own  section,  he  can  afford  in  a  very  large  measure 
to  despise  the  judgment  of  the  other  three.  He  has  to  some  ex 
tent  a  refuge  and  a  breakwater  against  the  tyranny  of  what  we 
call  public  opinion.  But  in  a  country  like  ours,  of  absolute 
democratic  equality,  public  opinion  is  not  only  omnipotent,  it  is 
omnipresent.  There  is  no  refuge  from  its  tyranny  ;  there  is  no 


1  "Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  45,  46. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  183 

hiding  from  its  reach  ;  and  the  result  is  that,  if  you  take  the  old 
Greek  lantern  and  go  about  to  seek  among  a  hundred  you  will 
find  not  one  single  American  who  really  has  not,  or  who  does 
not  fancy  at  least  that  he  has,  something  to  gain  or  lose  in  his 
ambition,  his  social  life,  or  his  business  from  the  good  opinion 
and  the  votes  of  those  around  him.  And  the  consequence  is 
that,  instead  of  being  a  mass  of  individuals,  each  one  fearlessly 
blurting  out  his  own  convictions,  as  a  nation,  compared  with 
other  nations,  we  are  a  mass  of  cowards.  More  than  all  other 
people  we  are  afraid  of  each  other."  ' 

The  great  agencies  through  which  public  opinion 
here  finds  expression  are,  the  pulpit,  parties,  and  the 
press.  These  he  thought  inadequate  to  deal  with 
what  the  French  call  "  burning  questions,"  like 
slavery,  woman  suffrage,  temperance,  and  labor, 
with  issues  ahead  of  public  opinion,  partly  from  pre 
occupation,  but  chiefly  because,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  they  voice  and  are  bound  by  the  average  sen 
timent.  Hear  him  again  : 

"  The  pulpit,  for  instance,  has  a  sphere  of  its  own.  It  is  too 
busy  getting  men  to  heaven  to  concern  itself  with  worldly  duties 
and  obligations.  And  when  it  tries  to  direct  the  parish  in  polit 
ical  and  social  ways,  it  is  baffled  by  the  fact  that  among  its 
supporters  are  men  of  all  parties  and  of  all  social  grades,  ready 
to  take  offence  at  any  word  which  relates  to  their  earthly  pur 
suits  or  interests,  and  spoken  in  a  tone  of  criticism  or  rebuke. 
As  the  minister's  settlement  and  salary  depend  upon  the  unity 
and  good-will  of  the  people  he  preaches  to,  he  cannot  fairly  be 
expected,  save  in  exceptional  and  special  cases,  to  antagonize 
his  flock.  If  all  clergymen  were  like  Paul,  or  Luther,  or  Wesley, 
they  might  give,  not  take  orders.  But  as  the  average  clergyman 
is  an  average  man  he  will  be  bound  by  average  conditions."  2 


1  Lecture  on  O'Connell,  see  Appendix. 

2  Extract  from  a  lecture  on  Agitation  which  Mr.  Phillips  delivered 
far  and  wide  for  many  years,  but  of  which  no  extended  report  is  now 
available. 


1 84  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  defect  thus  indicated  in  the  Church,  Mr.  Phil 
lips  also  discovered  in  parties  and  the  press  : 

"  If  you  were  a  caucus  to-night  and  I  were  your  orator,  none 
of  you  could  get  beyond  the  necessary  and  timid  limitations  of 
party.  You  not  only  would  not  demand,  you  would  not  allow 
me  to  utter  one  word  of  what  you  really  thought  and  what  I 
thought.  You  would  demand  of  me — and  my  value  as  a  caucus- 
speaker  would  depend  entirely  on  the  adroitness  and  the  vigi 
lance  with  which  I  met  the  demand— that  I  should  not  utter  one 
single  word  which  would  compromise  the  vote  of  next  week. 
That  is  politics.  So  with  the  press.  Seemingly  independent,  and 
sometimes  really  so,  the  press  can  afford  only  to  mount  the 
cresting  wave,  not  go  beyond  it.  The  editor  might  as  well 
shoot  his  reader  with  a  bullet  as  with  a  new  idea.  He  must  hit 
the  exact  line  of  the  opinion  of  the  day.  I  am  not  finding  fafult 
with  him  ;  I  am  only  describing  him.  Some  three  years  ago  I 
took  to  one  of  the  freest  of  the  Boston  journals  a  letter,  and  by 
appropriate  consideration  induced  its  editor  to  print  it.  As  we 
glanced  along  its  contents  and  came  to  the  concluding  state 
ment,  he  said:  'Couldn't  you  omit  that?'  I  said,  '  No  ;  I 
wrote  it  for  that ;  it  is  the  gist  of  the  statement.'  '  Well,1  said 
he,  '  it  is  true  ;  there  is  not  a  boy  in  the  streets  who  does  not 
know  that  it  is  true  ;  but  I  wish  you  could  omit  that.'  I  insisted, 
and  the  next  morning,  fairly  and  justly,  he  printed  the  whole. 
Side  by  side  he  put  an  article  of  his  own  in  which  he  said  : 
'  We  copy  in  the  next  column  an  article  from  Mr.  Phillips,  and 
we  only  regret  the  absurd  and  unfounded  statement  with  which 
he  concludes  it.'  He  had  kept  his  promise  by  printing  the 
article  ;  he  saved  his  reputation  by  printing  the  comment.  And 
that,  again,  is  the  inevitable,  the  essential  limitation  of  the  press 
in  a  republican  community.  Our  institutions,  floating  un- 
anchored  on  the  shifting  surface  of  popular  opinion,  cannot 
afford  to  hold  back  or  to  draw  forward  a  hated  question,  and 
compel  a  reluctant  public  to  look  at  it  and  to  consider  it.  Hence, 
as  you  see  at  once,  the  moment  a  large  issue,  twenty  years  ahead 
of  its  age,  presents  itself  to  the  consideration  of  an  empire  or  of 
a  republic,  just  in  proportion  to  the  freedom  of  its  institutions  is 
the  necessity  of  a  platform  outside  of  the  press,  of  politics,  and 
of  the  Church,  whereon  stand  men  with  no  candidate  to  elect, 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  1,35 

with  no  plan  to  carry,  with  no  reputation  to  stake,  with  no  ob 
ject  but  the  truth,  no  purpose  but  to  tear  the  question  open  and 
let  the  light  through  it."  1 

4.  Another    principle    in    Mr.     Phillips's    theory 
touched  the  reign  of  public  opinion  in  a  republic  like 
ours,  whose  sceptre  is  at  once  omnipotent  and  irreso 
lute  : 

"  Each  man  here,  in  fact,  holds  his  property  and  his  life  de 
pendent  on  the  constant  presence  of  an  agitation  like  this  of 
Anti-Slavery.  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty  ;  power 
is  ever  stealing  from  the  many  to  the  few.  The  manna  of  popu 
lar  liberty  must  be  gathered  each  day  or  it  is  rotten.  The  living 
sap  of  to-day  outgrows  the  dead  rind  of  yesterday.  The  hand 
intrusted  with  power  becomes,  either  from  human  depravity  or 
esprit  de  corps,  the  necessary  enemy  of  the  people.  Only  by 
continual  oversight  can  the  democrat  in  office  be  prevented 
from  hardening  into  a  despot ;  only  by  unintermitted  agitation 
can  a  people  be  kept  sufficiently  awake  to  principle  not  to  let 
liberty  be  smothered  in  material  prosperity.  .  .  . 

"  Some  men  suppose  that,  in  order  to  the  people's  governing 
themselves,  it  is  only  necessary,  as  Fisher  Ames  said,  that  the 
'  Rights  of  man  be  printed  and  that  every  citizen  have  a  copy  ;' 
as  the  Epicureans  two  thousand  years  ago  imagined  God  a  being 
who  arranged  this  marvellous  machinery,  set  it  going,  and  then 
sunk  to  sleep.  Republics  exist  only  on  the  tenure  of  being  con 
stantly  agitated.  The  Anti-Slavery  agitation  is  an  important, 
nay,  an  essential  part  of  the  machinery  of  the  State.  It  is  not 
a  disease  nor  a  medicine.  No  ;  it  is  the  normal  state — the  nor 
mal  state  of  the  nation.  Never,  to  our  latest  posterity,  can  we 
afford  to  do  without  prophets  like  Garrison,  to  stir  up  the  mo 
notony  of  wealth  and  reawake  the  people  to  the  great  ideas  that 
are  constantly  fading  out  of  our  minds — to  trouble  the  waters 
that  there  may  be  health  in  their  flow."  a 

5.  Mr.    Phillips's  final  axiom  as  an  agitator  was. 


1  Lecture  on  O'Connell,  see  Appendix. 

2  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  52,  53. 


I  86  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

'  The  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the 
truth."  That  is,  he  acted  on  the  platform  as  a  wit 
ness  acts  who  is  put  under  oath  to  testify  in  a  case 
at  law.  "  No  concealing-  half  of  one's  convictions 
to  make  the  other  half  more  acceptable  ;  no  denial  of 
one  truth  to  gain  a  hearing  for  another  ;  no  compro 
mise  ;  or,  as  O'Connell  phrased  it,  '  Nothing  is  politi 
cally  right  which  is  morally  wrong  :'  "  such  was  his 
dictum.  Under  this  rule  he  used  a  plainness  of 
speech  which  appalled  because  it  was  unusual.  He 
was  the  one  outspoken  man  in  a  nation  of  euphem- 
izers.  He  called  a  spade  a  spade,  not  "  an  agricul 
tural  instrument."  He  insisted  that  debts  were 
debts,  not  "  pecuniary  obligations."  He  said  slavery 
is  slavery,  not  "  a  form  of  economic  subordination." 
The  wisdom  of  this  is  clear  when  we  remember  how 
a  soft  name  softens  a  sin,  and  how  the  bare,  hard 
name  reveals  and  brands  a  sin  and  sometimes  alarms 
and  convicts  the  sinner.  Said  he  : 

"  What  is  the  denunciation  with  which  we  are  charged  ?  It 
is  endeavoring,  in  our  faltering  human  speech,  to  declare  the 
enormity  of  the  sin  of  making  merchandise  of  men — of  sepa 
rating  husband  and  wife,  taking  the  infant  from  its  mother,  and 
selling  the  daughter  to  prostitution — of  a  professedly  Christian 
nation  denying,  by  statute,  the  Bible  to  every  sixth  man  and 
woman  of  its  population,  and  making  it  illegal  for  '  two  or  three  ' 
to  meet  together  except  a  white  man  be  present  !  What  is  this 
harsh  criticism  of  motives  with  which  we  are  charged  ?  It  is 
simply  holding  the  intelligent  and  deliberate  actor  responsible 
for  the  character  and  consequences  of  his  acts.  Is  there  any 
thing  inherently  wrong  in  such  denunciation  or  such  criticism  ? 
This  we  may  claim — we  have  never  judged  a  man  but  out  of  his 
own  mouth.  We  have  seldom,  if  ever,  held  him  to  account, 
except  for  the  acts  of  which  he  and  his  own  friends  were  proud. 
All  that  we  ask  the  world  and  thoughtful  men  to  note  are  the 
principles  and  deeds  on  which  the  American  pulpit  and  Ameri- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  1 87 

can  public  men  plume  themselves.  We  always  allow  our  oppo 
nents  to  paint  their  own  pictures.  Our  humble  duty  is  to  stand 
by  and  assure  the  spectators  that  what  they  would  take  for  a 
knave  or  a  hypocrite  is  really,  in  American  estimation,  a  Doctor 
of  Divinity  or  Secretary  of  State."  1 

In  vindicating  Daniel  O'Connell's  kindred  plain 
ness  of  speech  at  a  later  day,  he  applies  his  words  to 
his  own  position  : 

"  O'Connell  has  been  charged  with  coarse,  violent,  and  intem 
perate  language.  The  criticism  is  of  little  importance.  Stupor 
and  palsy  never  understand  life.  White-livered  indifference  is 
always  disgusted  and  annoyed  by  earnest  conviction.  Protes 
tants  criticised  Luther  in  the  same  way.  It  took  three  centuries 
to  carry  us  far  off  enough  to  appreciate  his  colossal  proportions. 
It  is  a  hundred  years  to-day  since  O'Connell  was  born.  It  will 
take  another  hundred  to  put  us  at  such  an  angle  as  will  enable 
us  correctly  .to  measure  his  stature.  Premising  that  it  would 
be  folly  to  find  fault  with  a  man  struggling  for  life  because  his 
attitudes  were  ungraceful,  remembering  the  Scythian  king's 
answer  to  Alexander,  criticising  his  strange  weapon  :  '  If  you 
knew  how  precious  freedom  was,  you  would  defend  it  even  with 
axes,'  we  must  see  that  O'Connell's  own  explanation  is  evidently 
sincere  and  true.  He  found  the  Irish  heart  so  cowed  and  Eng 
lishmen  so  arrogant,  that  he  saw  it  needed  an  independence 
verging  on  insolence,  a  defiance  that  touched  the  extremest 
limits,  to  breathe  self-respect  into  his  own  race,  teach  the  aggres 
sor  manners,  and  sober  him  into  respectful  attention.  It  was  the 
same  with  us  Abolitionists.  Webster  had  taught  the  North  the 
bated  breath  and  crouching  of  the  slave.  It  needed  with  us  an 
attitude  of  independence  that  was  almost  insolent  ;  it  needed  that 
we  should  exhaust  even  the  Saxon  vocabulary  of  scorn,  to  fitly 
utter  the  righteous  and  haughty  contempt  that  honest  men  had 
for  man-stealers.  Only  in  that  way  could  we  wake  the  North  to 
self-respect,  or  teach  the  South  that  at  length  she  had  met  her 
equal,  if  not  her  master.  On  a  broad  canvas  meant  for  the 
public  square  the  tiny  lines  of  a  Dutch  interior  would  be  invisi- 


"  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  107,  108. 


1 88  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ble.  In  no  other  circumstances  was  the  French  maxim,  '  You 
can  never  make  a  revolution  with  rose-water,'  more  profoundly 
true.  The  world  has  hardly  yet  learned  how  deep  a  philosophy 
lies  in  Hamlet's — 

1  Nay,  and  thou'lt  mouth, 
'  I'll  rant  as  well  as  thou.'  "  l 

Thus,  as  far  as  possible,  in  the  Agitator's  own  lan 
guage  have  we  outlined  his  philosophy  of  agitation. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  he  gave  a  reason  for  the 
faith  that  was  in  him,  and  that  he  opened  a  school 
whose  influence  was  continental  when  he  was  at  the 
head  of  it.  Whether  it  shall  last,  as  he  supposed  it 
would,  it  is  for  the  future  to  decide. 


See  the  Address  on  O'Connell  in  the  Appendix. 


XI. 

EGERIA. 

IT  was  the  peculiar  good  fortune  of  Mr.  Phillips, 
in  his  public  isolation,  to  have  a  congenial  home. 
The  modest  dwelling  on  Essex  Street  was  more  than 
his  castle — as  the  British  orator  declared  every  Eng 
lishman's  house  to  be — it  was  his  sanctuary.  When 
Numa,  the  second  King  of  Rome,  undertook  to 
pacify  the  turbulency  and  refine  the  manners  of  the 
ancient  city  (so  runs  the  legend),  he  visited  a  secret 
grotto  and  held  converse  with  a  hidden  goddess 
named  Egeria,  whom  he  proclaimed  his  counsellor 
and  inspiration  and  by  whose  authority  he  reinforced 
his  own.  The  wife  of  the  democratic  monarch  of 
the  American  forum  was  his  Egeria.  Few  saw  her 
—almost  as  invisible,  through  illness,  as  the  old 
Roman  divinity.  The  world  felt  her  through  him. 
Among  his  intimates  Mr.  Phillips  was  never  tired  of 
quoting  her  wise  opinions  and  clever  sayings.  He 
proudly  acknowledged  his  dependence  upon  her  for 
moral  guidance  and  initiative.  Thus,  in  a  letter  to 
Elizabeth  Pease,  he  writes  : 

"  Ann  is  as  usual  :  little  sleep  ;  very  weak  ;  never  goes  down 
stairs  ;  interested  keenly  in  all  good  things,  and  sometimes,  I  tell 
her,  so  much  my  motive  and  prompter  to  everything  good  that  I 
fear,  should  I  lose  her,  there'd  be  nothing  left  of  me  worth  your 
loving."  ' 


Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  pp.  14,  15. 


1 90  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Never  was  there  a  more  genial  and  intellectual 
atmosphere  than  that  in  the  chamber  of  the  charm 
ing  Egeria  of  Wendell  Phillips.  Her  broad,  mod 
ern  culture,  joined  to  a  deep  knowledge  of  classic 
lore,  and  stored  in  a  brilliant  mind,  made  her  com 
panionship  an  education  to  the  favored  few  who 
penetrated  into  that  rare  sick-room,  and,  as  he  was 
always  avowing,  an  inspiration  to  her  husband. 

Strange  to  say,  considering  the  nature  and  length 
of  the  sufferer's  complaint,  the  tone  was  never  mor 
bid  at  this  fireside.  Comedy,  not  tragedy,  held  the 
stage  there,  for  these  t\vo  were  famous  laughers. 
It  was  a  saying  of  his  that  "  there  was  more  sun 
and  fun  in  Essex  Street  than  anywhere  else  in  Bos 
ton."  Of  course  the  laugh  faded  into  seriousness 
when  deep  topics  were  considered,  when  she  was  to 
be  comforted  in  pain  and  he  was  to  be  strengthened 
for  duty.  Unceasing  were  their  mutual  thoughts, 
constant  their  acts  of  self-sacrifice  for  one  another, 
never-ending  the  counsel  they  took.  She  habitually 
discussed  with  him,  before  he  left  home  to  attend  a 
convention  or  to  deliver  an  important  address,  those 
aspects  of  current  questions  which  she  thought  he 
ought  specially  to  urge  or  emphasize.2  The  two 
were  united  in  their  views,  or  only  so  much  at  differ 
ence  as  gave  added  charm  and  piquancy  to  their 
intercourse.  And  he  cared  more  for  her  approval 
than  for  all  the  plaudits  of  the  admiring  thousands 
who  thrilled  beneath  his  electric  speech.3 

To  a  relative  who  was  familiar  with  the  household 
economy  of  the  Phillipses,  we  are  indebted  for  a 

1  So  says  Dr.  Samuel  A.  Green,  ex-Mayor  of  Boston,  an  old  <Y;rn.l 
and  neighbor  of  Mr.  Phillips. 

*  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  6.  3  Il>. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  19! 

glimpse  into  it,  as  attractive  as  an  interior  by  Rem 
brandt  : 

"  To  those  whom  Mrs.  Phillips  admitted  to  visit  her  freely 
there  was  seldom  any  symptom  of  depression  or  despondency 
visible.  The  sunny  south  chamber,  having  an  outlook  down 
Harrison  Avenue,  was  bright  with  flowers,  of  which  the  invalid 
was  passionately  fond.  In  midwinter  she  would  have  nastur 
tiums,  smilax,  and  costly  exotics,  later  the  brilliant  tulips,  and 
then  the  blossoms  of  spring,  the  May-flowers  and  anemones, 
until  the  garden  rose  and  svveetbrier  appeared.  All  these  were 
supplied  by  loving  hands  and  caused  her  unceasing  delight. 
Nor  did  her  personal  appearance  often  betoken  invalidism.  She 
had  a  good  color,  a  strong  voice,  and  a  hearty  laugh,  so  that  it 
was  difficult  to  think  her  ill.  Conversation  never  flagged.  She 
was  eager  to  hear  about  and  discuss  the  news  of  the  day,  espe 
cially  in  Anti-Slavery  and  reformatory  lines  ;  she  took  the 
warmest  interest  in  the  affairs  of  her  friends,  and  to  the  poor 
and  needy,  who  brought  stories  of  sorrow  and  suffering  and 
wrongs  endured,  her  sympathy  and  aid  were  freely  given,  as 
were  her  husband's.  There  was  no  lack  of  cheer  and  merri 
ment  and  sparkling  humor  from  husband  and  wife,  when  two  or 
three  chosen  friends  were  gathered  in  the  sick-room,  and  shouts 
of  laughter  from  it  resounded  through  the  house.  '  Gay  as  the 
gayest  bird  is  Ann  T.  Greene,'  was  written  of  her  by  a  rhyming 
schoolmate  when  she  was  a  girl,  and  she  continued  to  merit  the 
characterization.  She  was  very  fond  of  music,  as  was  her  father 
before  her,  and,  debarred  from  going  to  concerts,  she  found 
pleasure  in  listening  to  the  strains  of  the  hand-organs  which 
were  frequently  played  beneath  her  window."  l 

When  Mr.  Phillips  was  going  out  his  wife  habit 
ually  said  : 

'  Wendell,  don't  forget  the  organ  money  !" 

This  was  as  surely  left,  and  as  confidently  expected 
by  the  musical  mechanic  who  ground  out  the  arias  of 
sunny  Italy  in  these  daily  serenades,  as  the  sunrise.2 


1  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  pp.  15,  16.    .    . 

*  So  the  author  was  told  by  Mrs.  Bannard,  of  Long  Branch,  N.  J. 


192  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Mr.  Phillips  personally  visited  the  markets  every 
morning-  in  search  of  delicacies  to  gratify  the  in 
valid's  appetite,  and  might  be  seen  wending  his  way 
homeward  with  his  hands  full  of  parcels  "  for  Ann."  1 
In  the  Phillips  snuggery  the  meals  were  always 
served  in  the  wife's  apartment,  he  on  this  side  she  on 
that  of  a  tiny  table. 

'  We  eat  in  French,"  said  Mr.  Phillips,  referring 
I  to  a  habit  they  had  of  always  conversing  at  such 
I  time  in  the  language  of  Moliere. 

He  was  a  good  eater  and  a  good  sleeper,  capital 
sanitary  points,  and  the  secret,  no  doubt,  of  his  ex- 
.  cellent  health  and  spirits.  He  often  quoted  and 
commended  the  saying  of  Cobbctt,  the  English 
political  economist,  that  "  the  scat  of  civilization  is 
the  stomach  ;"  to  which  he  would  tack  on  by  way 
of  climax,  "  add  an  easy  conscience  and  a  pillow 
steeped  in  poppy  juice." 

As  the  colonial  women  abjured  tea  in  the  pre- 
Revolutionary  days  and  discountenanced  the  king 
by  banishing  the  teapot,  so  Mrs.  Phillips  would  use 
neither  cane  sugar  on  her  table  nor  employ  cotton 
fabrics  in  her  household,  so  long  as  these  were  the 
product  of  slave  labor.  This  was  what  she  called 
an  argumentum  ad  Iwminem — logic  that  would  per 
colate  through  the  pockets  into  the  heads  of  the 
labor-stealers. 

Mr.  Phillips  was  constantly  out  in  the  thick  and 
throng  of  the  world.  He  saw  everybody  ;  had  all 
sort  of  adventures.  As  his  wife  could  not  share  his 
experiences  at  first  hand,  he  made  her  his  companion 
at  second-hand.  He  was  eyes  and  ears  for  her,  and 


"  Memorial,"   p.  16. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  193 

retailed  at  home  what  he  got  at  wholesale  abroad. 
No  story  ever  lost  anything-  in  his  telling  of  it,  and 
in  this  way  he  twice  enjoyed  the  manifold  events  of 
his  stirring  life. 

Both  were  passionately  fond  of  children.  De 
prived  of  any  of  their  own,  they  adopted  the  children 
of  their  friends,  with  whom  their  house  often  ran 
over.  Mrs.  Phillips  would  see  them  when  she  de 
nied  herself  to  their  elders.  And  Mr.  Phillips  had  a 
rare  faculty  of  opening  or  preparing  his  mail,  and 
even  of  conducting  his  reading,  while  simultaneously 
carrying  on  an  animated  conversation  with  these 
little  friends,  always  adapting  himself  to  their  level 
of  interests  and  pursuits.1  There  are  many  now  in 
middle  life  who  held  the  love  of  this  couple  from 
early  childhood,  and  whose  gratitude  for  thebestow- 
ment  grows  with  the  lapse  of  time.  That  they  were 
wise  counsellors,  the  following  half-sportive  lines, 
written  by  Mr.  Phillips  at  a  later  day,  on  the  cars, 
while  he  was  returning  with  a  party  from  a  visit  to 
New  York,  will  attest.  They  were  pencilled  on  the 
fly-leaf  of  a  little  book  for  children  called  "  Specta 
cles  for  Young  Eyes,"  which  had  been  requested  as 
a  souvenir  of  the  jaunt  by  him  (now  an  honorable 
and  useful  man)  to  whom  the  lines  were  addressed  : 

TO   F.  H.  S. 

Frank 

Better  loves  to  read 

Than  to  play. 

Hear  him  with  mother  plead, 
"  Bring  me  a  book  from  far  away.'; 
Books — 


1  Mrs.  Bannard  is  authority  for  this. 


194  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  mind's  food — 
Are  good. 
But  never  clutch 
Too  much. 
Good  soul,  sound  stomach,  sound  brain, 

These  are  the  chain 
Which  holds  the  world  in  your  hand, 

And  govern  the  land. 

These  serve  God  the  best, 

"  Till  He  gives  you  rest." 

If  you'd  fill  life  with  true  joy, 

My  boy, 
While  you  use  these  "  Spectacles 

For  Young  Eyes," 
Remember  to  get  strong 
As  well  as  wise.1 

In  the  summer  the  town  house  was  invariably  ex 
changed  for  two  or  three  months  of  country  air  and 
green  meadows  and  bright  birds,  and  the  time  was 
devoted  to  experimenting  with  various  methods  of 
treatment  for  Mrs.  Phillips,  all  of  which  proved 
futile.2  One  of  these  was  mesmerism,  and,  refer 
ring  to  the  difficulty  of  securing  a  good  operator  and 
to  her  husband's  being  the  best  she  had,  the  Avife 
writes  humorously  to  her  English  friend,  Miss 
Pease  : 

"  January  31,  1846. 

"  So  the  poor,  devoted  Wendell  is  caught  one  hour  of  his  busy 
day  and  seated  down  to  hold  my  thumbs.  I  grow  sicker  every 
year,  Wendell  lovelier  ;  I  more  desponding,  he  always  cheery, 
and  telling  me  f  shall  live  not  only  to  be  '  fat  and  forty,'  but  fat 
and  scolding  at  eighty  !" 


1  Given  to  the  writer  by  Mrs.  J.  T.  Sargent,  whose  son  is  the  one 
referred  to. 

8  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  16. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  IQ5 

The  letter  concludes  : 

"  Dear  Wendell  has  met  with  a  sad  affliction  this  fall  in  the 
death  of  his  mother,  who  left  us  in  November.  She  was  every 
thing  to  him — indeed,  to  all  her  children  ;  a  devoted  mother  and 
uncommon  woman.  ...  So  poor  unworthy  I  am  more  of  a 
treasure  to  Wendell  than  ever,  and  a  pretty  frail  one.  For  his 
sake  I  should  love  to  live  ;  for  my  own  part  I  am  tired,  not  of 
life,  but  of  a  sick  one."  1 

On  the  same  sheet  Mr.  Phillips  speaks  of  his  be 
reavement  : 

"  Dear  Ann  has  spoken  of  my  mother's  death.  My  good, 
noble,  dear  mother  !  We  differed  utterly  on  the  matter  of 
slavery,  and  she  grieved  a  good  deal  over  what  she  thought  was 
a  waste  of  my  time  and  a  sad  disappointment  to  her  ;  but  still 
I  am  always  best  satisfied  with  myself  when  I  fancy  I  can  see 
anything  in  me  which  reminds  me  of  my  mother.  She  lived  in 
her  children,  and  they  almost  lived  in  her,  and  the  world  is  a 
different  one  now  she  is  gone."  2 

With  such  a  mother  and  such  a  wife,  no  wonder 
Wendell  Phillips  thought  highly  of  women.  A 
man's  judgment  of  women  is  the  infallible  index  not 
only  of  his  own  refinement,  but  even  more  of  the 
character  of  his  feminine  belongings.  A  mother 
moulds  her  son,  a  wife  moulds  her  husband  either 
into  respect  or  into  disrespect  for  her  whole  sex. 
Motive  how  powerful  for  lofty  thought  and  a  life 
above  frivolity  ! 

On  the  death  of  his  mother,  Mr.  Phillips  installed 
in  a  place  of  honor  among  the  servants  in  his  house, 
the  dearly  loved  nurse  of  his  childhood.*  who  now 
became  his  cook.  This  woman  loved  him  in  return 
with  a  passionate  devotion.  She  habitually  left  the 


"  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  pp.  16,  17. 
a  /£.,  p.  17.  3  Ante,  p.  12. 


196  WENDELL 

door  into  the  kitchen  open  that  she  might  hear  him 
pass  and  repass,  and  said  : 

"  Bless  him,  there  is  more  music  in  his  footfall 
than  in  a  cathedral  organ  !" 

Long  afterward  when  she  was  too  old  for  work  he 
placed  her  in  a  home  of  her  own,  went  to  see  her 
every  Saturday  with  his  arms  full  of  remembrances, 
and  took  care  of  her  until  she  died.1 

Affairs  in  this  house  moved  with  the  precision  of 
machinery.  At  ten  o'clock  all  was  whist.  When, 
as  was  often  the  case,  a  lecture  engagement  or  a 
public  meeting  kept  him  out  beyond  that  hour,  he 
let  himself  in  quietly  and  soon  retired.  Rising  at 
seven  in  the  morning,  breakfast  was  ready  at  half- 
past  seven,  dinner  was  served  at  two  o'clock,  and  a 
plain  supper  relieved  the  kitchen  at  half-past  six. 

Mr.  Phillips  was  never  happier  than  when  engaged 
in  tinkering.  His  mechanical  tastes  nave  been 
already  referred  to.  When  a  door  was  to_be_eased, 
a  fireplace  to  be  overhauled,  a  window  to  be  tight 
ened,  he  went  about  hammer  or  saw  in  hand  su 
premely  satisfied.  Of  the  kitchen,  however,  he 
stood  in  awe,  never  intruding  there.  Nor  did  he 
meddle  with  the  "  help."  Characteristically  he  was 
on  hand  for  service,  never  for  interference.  He  was 
always  amiable  and  easy  about  the  house.  No  one 
ever  heard  him  scold — a  gentleman  off  as  well  as  on 
parade,  and  he  was  appreciative  of  all  that  was 
done  for  him  and  was  never  exacting.  Hence  the 
servants  idolized  him  and  remained  for  years.  He 
paid  the  best  wages  of  anybody  in  the  neighborhood, 
and  contended  that  this  was  the  best  policy,  as  it 


1  Recollections  of  Mrs.  John  T.  Sargent  (verbal). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

promoted   contentment  and   secured    a   prompt  re 
sponse  to  all  calls.     "  Good  pay,  good  service,"  was  j 
his  oracular  remark. 

Mrs.  Phillips  was  a  fitful  sleeper.  Her  husband 
occupied  a  room  just  back  of  hers,  and  she  frequently 
aroused  hirrflTdozen  times  in  the  course  of  the  night. 
The  family  physician  testifies^  that  when  calling  in 
the  early  morning  he  often  counted  fifteen  burned 
matches  strewn  about,  mute  witnesses  to  the  number 
of  her  calls  and  his  answers  !  '  And  this  continued 
more  than  forty-six  years  without  a  murmur  on  his 
part  ! 

He  was  not  a  great  talker  at  home.  Indeed,  Mrs. 
Phillips  used  to  say  that  "  Silence  would  reign  at  26 
Essex  Street  unless  she  broke  it."  When  he  came 
in  from  without,  however,  and  had  a  budget  of  news 
to  open,  he  would  be  all  animation.  These  were  the 
occasions  when  "  laughter,  holding  both  his  sides," 
made  the  house  merry. 

Mr.  Phillips  was  a  constant  student.  When  he  was 
not  with  his  wife,  or  was  not  engaged  in  one  or  an 
other  of  those  pottering  excursions,  he  was  busy  with 
his  books  or  devouring  the  newspapers,  of  which  he 
took  a  vast  number  of  all  shades  of  opinion.  In  pre 
paring  his  speeches  he  went  down  to  the  second 
floor,  entered  his  "den,"  as  he  called  the  room 
where  he  kept  his  intellectual  belongings,  locked  the 
door,  and  denied  himself  to  every  one,  sometimes 
for  days,  only  emerging -to  eat  and  sleep.  His  favor 
ite  position  when  so  engaged  was  to  lie  on  the  sofa, 
where  on  his  back  he  thought  his  way  through  and 


1  So  Dr.  David  Thayer,  of  Boston,  the  physician  referred  to,  in 
formed  the  writer. 


I96 

y  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

d 

out.1  He  disliked  the  pen,  and  a  letter  from  him  was 
a  supreme  token  of  his  regard.  "  Writing,"  he  used 
to  say,  "  is  a  mild  form  of  slavery — a  man  chained 
to  an  ink-pot." 

Such  was  the  orator  at  home. 


1  The  author  had  these  details  from  the  lips  of  one  who  passed 
many  years  under  Mr.  Phillips' s  roof. 


XII. 

CONCERNING  A   SINGULAR   EPIDEMIC. 

IT  is  the  judicious  remark  of  one  of  the  annalists 
of  the  Anti-Slavery  movement,  that  "  at  the  bottom 
of  all  the  wretched  casuistry  by  which  men  silenced 
the  demands  of  justice  in  their  hearts  was  this  one 
fact — the  slaves  were  black  ;  or,  to  use  the  word 
more  deeply  freighted  with  atheistic  contempt  of 
human  nature  than  any  other,  '  niggers. '  If  by  a 
miracle  the  slaves  had  been  suddenly  made  white, 
all  excuses  for  slavery  would  have  been  overthrown, 
and  the  whole  people  would  have  risen  up  as  one 
man  to  demand  its  instant  abolition.  The  primary 
fault  of  the  Abolitionists,  in  popular  estimation,  was 
their  belief  in  the  absolute  humanity  of  the  negroes."  1 

Colorphobia  was  now  epidemic.  A  black  skin  de 
humanized  the  wearer  of  it.  Negroes  were  held  to 
be  cattle,  and  they  were  treated  like  cattle.  If  a 
black  presumed  to  take  the  position  of  a  man,  or  to 
claim  any  human  rights  at  a  hotel,  in  travelling,  in 
business,  or  even  at  church,  he  was  pelted  back  with 
insults  and  trampled  down  with  oaths.  "  Jim  Crow" 
cars  were  set  apart  for  them  on  the  railroads,  and 
"  negro  pews"  in  the  house  of  Him  who  said,  "  God 
hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  to  serve 
Him." 


1  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  pp.  36,  37. 


200  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  author  just  quoted  tells  the  following  stor}T  : 

"  A  colored  merchant  from  Liberia,  a  man  of  intelligence  as 
well  as  wealth,  and  highly  esteemed  by  Colonizatiomsts,  being 
on  a  visit  to  Boston,  took  the  opportunity  of  making  the  ac 
quaintance  of  the  Abolitionists  As  he  wished  to  hear  Dr. 
Beecher  preach,  I  invited  him,  as  an  act  of  courtesy  to  a  distin 
guished  foreigner,  to  take  a  seat  in  my  pew.  On  my  way  out 
of  church  I  encountered  the  indignant  frowns  of  a  large  number 
of  the  congregation,  but  it  was  amusing  to  witness  the  change 
of  countenance  that  fell  upon  the  advocates  of  colonization  as 

I  introduced  to  them  '  Mr. ,  of  Liberia.'     They  really  seemed 

to  think  his  odor  was  not  quite  so  offensive,  after  all,  as  they 
had  suspected.  The  air  of  Liberia  was  such  a  powerful  disin 
fectant  !  The  slave-holders  used  to  think  the  atmosphere  of 
their  home  was  perfectly  delectable  when  slaves  in  kitchen, 
dining-room,  parlor,  and  boudoir  were  as  all-pervading  as  flies  ; 
but  there  was  no  odor  so  offensive  to  them  as  that  imparted  to  a 
negro  when  he  was  set  free  ;  and  Northern  people  in  the  days 
of  slavery,  while  they  required  the  free  negro  to  occupy  a  sepa 
rate  apartment  on  steamboat  and  rail-car,  as  being  personally 
offensive  to  white  olfactories,  never  thought  of  remonstrating 
when  the  slave-holders  (in  the  hot  summer  weather,  too  !) 
claimed  for  their  slaves  all  the  privileges  of  first-class  travellers. 
Strange  that  in  a  republican  country  freedom  was  so  offensive, 
while  slavery  was  so  fragrant  !"  1 

All  this  was  infinitely  hateful  to  Wendell  Phillips. 
He  set  himself  to  resist  it  by  word  and  deed  with 
tireless  energy.  '  Emerson,"  remarks  Mr.  Higgin- 
son,  "  while  thoroughly  true  to  the  Anti-Slavery 
movement,  always  confessed  to  feeling  a  slight  in 
stinctive  aversion  to  negroes  ;  Theodore  Parker 
uttered  frankly  his  dislike  of  the  Irish.  Yet  neither 
of  these  had  distinctly  aristocratic  impulses,  while 
Phillips  had.  His  conscience  set  them  aside  so  im 
peratively  that  he  himself  hardly  knew  that  they 


"  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  pp    100,  101. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2OI 

were  there.  He  was  always  ready  to  be  identified 
with  the  colored  people  ;  always  ready  to  give  his 
oft-repeated  lecture  on  O'Connell  to  the  fellow- 
countrymen  of  that  hero  ;  but  in  these  and  all  cases 
his  democratic  habit  had  the  good-natured  air  of 
some  kindly  young  prince  ;  he  never  was  quite  the 
equal  associate  that  he  seemed.  The  want  of  it 
never  was  felt  by  his  associates  ;  it  was  in  his  deal 
ings  with  antagonists  that  the  real  attitude  came  out. 
When  he  once  spoke  contemptuously  of  those  who 
dined  with  a  certain  Boston  club  which  had  cen 
sured  him,  as  '  men  of  no  family,'  the  real  mental 
habit  appeared.  And  in  his  external  aspect  and 
bearing  the  patrician  air  never  left  him — the  air  that 
he  had  in  college  days,  or  in  that  period  when,  as 
Edmund  Quincy  delighted  to  tell,  an  English  visitor 
pointed  out  to  George  Ticknor  two  men  walking 
down  Park  Street,  and  added  the  cheerful  remark, 
4  They  are  the  only  men  I  have  seen  in  your  country 
who  look  like  gentlemen.'  The  two  men  were  the 
Abolitionists  Quincy  and  Phillips,  in  whose  personal 
aspect  the  conservative  Ticknor  could  see  little  to 
commend." 

To  return  to  Mr.  Phillips's  treatment  of  the  satanic 
caste  spirit  of  those  days  :  he  brought  the  question 
before  the  School  Committee  of  his  native  city  in 
1846.  Colored  children  were  not  allowed  to  study 
the  three  R's  with  white  children,  but  were  sent  off 
into  hovels  and  herded  in  exclusion,  to  catch  their 
learning  from  the  lips  of  inferior  teachers.  The  very 
text-books  seemed  to  protest  against  this  wicked 
ness  ;  for  they  were  printed  on  white  paper  in  black 


1  Obituary  notice  of  Wendell  Phillips,  p.  15. 


202  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ink — every  one  of  them  an  object- lesson  on  the  sub 
ject  of  equality.  To  the  petition  he  stirred,  and 
which  prayed  for  abolition  of  the  caste  schools,  the 
Committee  returned  a  brutal  denial.  They  were  in 
discreet  enough  to  assign  what  they  called  their 
"reasons,"  which  were  utterly  unreasonable,  and 
the  city  solicitor  accompanied  their  response  with  a 
confirmatory  opinion.  This  gave  Mr.  Phillips  an 
opportunity  which  he  eagerly  embraced  to  dissect 
the  attorney's  argument,  and  to  rub  red  pepper  in 
the  wounds  made  by  his  knife.1  Nor  did  he  permit 
the  matter  to  rest  here.  He  brought  it  up  again 
and  again,  made  it  the  "  Banquo's  ghost"  of  the 
School  Committee,  until  a  few  years  later  they  were 
driven  to  yield  the  point,  and  the  free  schools  of 
Boston  became  free  indeed.  At  the  annual  meeting 
of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society,  which 
occurred  soon  afterward,  the  pertinacious  Abolition 
ist  published  his  victory  in  this  resolution  : 

"Resolved,  That  this  society  rejoices  in  the  abolition  of  the 
separate  colored  schools  in  the  city  of  Boston  as  the  triumph  of 
law  and  justice  over  the  pride  of  caste  and  wealth,  and  recog 
nizes  in  it  the  marked  advance  of  the  Anti-Slavery  sentiments 
of  the  State."  2 

At  the  same  time  he  appealed  to  the  Legislature 
of  Massachusetts  to  compel  the  railroads  as  common 
carriers  to  admit  colored  men  to  the  cars  their  tickets 
demanded,  and,  in  the  end,  with  equal  success. 
Meanwhile,  he  made  it  a  habit  to  share  with  any 
black  man  in  whose  company  he  found  himself  what 
ever  accommodations  the  unfortunate  was  forced  to 
occupy.  Frederick  Douglass  mentions  several  in- 


Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xv.  2  /<*.,  vol.  xxv. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  203 

stances  in  which  he  had  this  gracious  companion 
ship  : 

"  On  one  occasion,  for  instance,  after  delivering  a  lecture  to 
the  New  Bedford  Lyceum  before  a  highly  cultivated  audience, 
when  brought  to  the  railroad  station  (as  I  was  not  allowed  to 
travel  in  a  first-class  car,  but  was  compelled  to  ride  in  a  filthy 
box  called  the  '  Jim  Crow  '  car),  he  stepped  to  my  side  in  the 
presence  of  his  aristocratic  friends,  and  walked  with  me  straight 
into  this  miserable  dog-car,  saying,  *  Douglass,  if  you  cannot 
ride  with  me,  I  can  ride  with  you.'  On  the  Sound,  between 
New  York  and  Newport,  in  those  dark  days  a  colored  passenger 
was  not  allowed  abaft  the  wheels  of  the  steamer,  and  had  to 
spend  the  night  on  the  forward  deck,  with  horses,  sheep,  and 
swine.  On  such  trips,  when  I  was  a  passenger,  Wendell  Phil 
lips  preferred  to  walk  the  naked  deck  with  me  to  taking  a  state 
room.  I  could  not  persuade  him  to  leave  me  to  bear  the  burden 
of  insult  and  outrage  alone."  J 

Acts  like  these  admit  us  to  look  into  Mr.  Phillips's 
soul  and  reveal  his  moral  grandeur. 


1  Oration  on  Wendell  Phillips,  delivered  before  the  colored  people 
of  Washington,  D.  C,  in  1884. 


XIII. 

MR.  CALHOUN'S  IDEA  OF  EQUILIBRIUM. 

MR.  GARRISON  happily  named  John  C.  Calhoun 
'  The  Napoleon  of  Slavery,"  and  he  also  foretold 
his  Waterloo.1  The  great  South  Carolinian  was  a 
man  of  irreproachable  private  and  infamous  polit 
ical  character.  He  was  not  a  demagogue.  He 
never  blustered  ;  and  he  had  the  courage  of  his  con 
victions.  A  believer  in  slavery,  he  claimed  for  it  a 
divine  warrant,  and,  with  far  more  reason,  a  Consti 
tutional  sanction.  His  theory  of  the  Union  made  it 
a  mere  confederacy  formed  by  sovereign  States  for 
certain  specified  purposes,  the  States  continuing  to 
be  sovereign  and  reserving  all  rights  not  expressly 
delegated.2  Out  of  this  doctrine,  under  which  the 
South  was  conscientiously  tutored,  came  secession. 
He  spelled  Nation  with  a  small  n,  while  the  two 
other  members  of  the  historic  senatorial  trio — Clay 
and  Webster — spelled  it  with  a  capital — an  orthog 
raphy  which  the  march  of  Sherman  to  the  sea  and 
the  success  of  Grant  at  Appomattox  eventually  en 
forced. 

But  while  Mr.  Calhoun  lived  he  did  two  things. 


1  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  Hi.,  p.  217. 

2  For  an  admirable  summary  of  his  theory  see  the  article  on  Calhoun 
by  the  late  Vice-President  of  the  defunct  Southern  Confederacy,  Mr. 
A.  H.  "Stephens,  in  Johnson's  New  Universal  Cyclopedia. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2O5 

He  provided  the  South  with  a  Constitutional  door 
of  escape  from  the  Union,  in  case  it  should  lose  its 
supremacy.  Meanwhile  he  strove,  with  magnificent 
energy,  to  hold  the  balance  of  power  where  it  was— 
in  the  hands  of  the  slave-masters.  Had  the  Repub 
lic  been  confined  to  the  thirteen  States  which  formed 
it,  this  had  been  an  easy  task.  But  it  was  constantly 
and  variously  acquiring  new  Territories  of  vast  ex 
tent  and  beyond  the  original  limits.  These  Terri 
tories  were  rapidly  peopled,  and  would  surely  in  the 
near  future  exert  a  controlling  influence  in  national 
affairs.  What  should  be  the  character  of  the  new 
States  into  which  they  were  to  be  mapped  out  ? 
Should  they  be  slave  States  or  free  States  ?  From 
the  very  start  this  issue  forced  itself  into  Congres 
sional  discussion.  It  became  angrier  and  angrier 
with  the  lapse  of  time  and  the  development  of  sec 
tional  interests.  Efforts  were  always  being  made  to 
quiet  and  end  the  discussion,  and  always  vainly,  be 
cause  always  by  compromise  rather  than  by  justice. 
Thus,  when  the  immense  domain,  then  known  as 
Louisiana,  was  acquired  from  France,  just  as  soon  as 
the  portion  of  it  which  had  St.  Louis  for  a  capital, 
had  been  colonized  by  slave-holders,  it  applied  for 
admission  into  the  Union  under  the  name  of  Missouri, 
with  a  State  constitution  which  not  only  established 
slavery,  but  prohibited  its  abolition.  The  free  States 
protested.  The  strife  raged  during  two  bitter  years. 
The  South  won  the  battle,  but  tossed  to  the  sulky 
North  a  sop  of  comfort  in  the  shape  of  the  "  Mis 
souri  Compromise,"  by  which  slavery  was  prohibited 
in  so  much  of  the  outlying  French  purchase  as  lay 
north  of  latitude  36°  30',  historically  known  as  "  Ma 
son  and  Dixon's  line." 


206  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

That  was  in  1820.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  it 
secured  for  the  oligarchy  the  undisputed  possession 
of  the  Government.  All  this  while,  however,  immi 
gration  was  pouring  into  the  Northern  States,  in 
creasing  their  population  and  wealth,  which  were 
further  enlarged  by  natural  growth,  while  the  do 
mestic  economy  of  the  Southern  States  cramped  them 
and  kept  them  stationary.  Moreover,  the  Terri 
tories  were  constantly  pre-empted,  mainly  from  the 
more  enterprising  North  and  by  settlers  who  had  no 
objection  to  slavery  in  the  South,  but  did  object  to 
the  introduction  of  the  system  into  their  new  abode, 
because  it  brought  them,  as  working  people,  into 
juxtaposition  with  a  servile  class.  This  again  trans 
formed  the  Territories  into  a  debatable  ground.  The 
South  feared  that  the  North  would  soon  predomi 
nate.  To  preserve  the  political  equilibrium  (a  con 
venient  phrase  which  meant  the  concentration  of 
power  in  the  slavocracy),  Mr.  Calhoun  began  to 
scheme  for  the  addition  of  new  slave  territory,  and 
Texas,  an  empire  in  itself,  was  demanded. 

The  North,  and  the  Whig  party  in  particular,  pro 
tested.  Conventions  were  held  here,  there,  every 
where.  The  annexation  of  Texas  was  pronounced 
unconstitutional  and  revolutionary.  Statesmen  like 
John  Quincy  Adams,  merchants  like  Abbott  Law 
rence,  asserted  that  the  success  of  the  plot  would  be 
equivalent  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  and  advised 
forcible  resistance. 1  Conservatives  suddenly  became 
radicals  and  Unionists  clamored  for  contingent  dis 
union.  The  nation  was  a  great  debating  society, 


1  Vide   Morse's  "  Life  of  John  Q.   Adams,"   in   loco,  and   Hill's 
Memoir  of  Abbott  Lawrence,"  p.  21. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2O/ 

and  the  subject  which  no  one  was  to  talk  about 
became  everybody's  theme. 

At  this  crisis  the  Abolitionists  were  neither  silent 
nor  idle.  Their  presses  struck  off  tons  of  matter. 
Their  meetings  attracted  universal  attention.  Their 
speeches  were  cheered  to  the  echo.  Their  aggres 
sive  spirit,  their  policy  of  carrying  the  war  into 
Africa,  their  logical  position,  in  noble  contrast  with 
the  contortions  of  professional  politicians,  blowing 
hot  and  blowing  cold,  extorted  the  admiration  of 
their  bitterest  opponents.  They  were  the  only  per 
sons  at  the  North  who  clearly  saw  the  nature  of  the 
contest,  who  recognized  the  impossibility  of  lasting 
union  on  the  present  basis,  and  who  distinctly  an 
nounced  their  purpose  never  to  intermit  their  efforts 
until  slavery,  the  prolific  cause  of  all  the  disturb 
ance,  should  be  overthrown. 

"As  to  disunion,"  remarked  Mr.  Phillips,  "it 
must  and  will  come.  Calhoun  wants  it  at  one  end 
of  the  Union,  Garrison  wants  it  at  the  other.  It  is 
written  in  the  counsels  of  God.  Meantime,  let  all 
classes  and  orders  and  interests  unite  in  using  the 
present  hour  to  prevent  the  annexation  of  Texas."  ' 
For  he  knew  that  if  Texas  was  not  admitted  the 
South  would  secede  and  thus  relieve  the  North  from 
all  complicity.  And  he  hoped  that  if  Texas  were 
admitted,  the  North  would  act  as  it  now  talked  and 
declare  the  Union  at  an  end.  This  was  the  motive 
of  his  course  at  this  moment.  Besides,  the  very 
controversy  was  a  public  education.  The  country 
was  awakened  to  see  the  drift  of  affairs.  Every 
speech  on  either  side  was  another  nail  driven  in  the 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xv.,  p.  177. 


208  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

coffin  of  the  system  he  hated.  For  tne  one  thing 
that  slavery  could  not  abide  was  examination.  There 
was  a  widespread  feeling  at  the  North  that  the  South 
would  retreat  before  the  storm  of  words  which  beat 
open  the  plot  and  the  plotters.  Perhaps  this  was 
the  explanation  of  the  brave  attitude  of  the  Whig 
leaders — they  did  not  believe  they  would  be  called 
to  transmute  words  into  deeds.  They  little  knew 
the  South  ! 

Mr.  Phillips  did  know  it.  Being  swayed  by  posi 
tive  convictions  himself,  he  recognized  the  conscien 
tious  deviltry  of  Mr.  Calhoun.  Men  of  positive  con 
victions  die — they  never  yield.  Therefore,  judging 
the  Southern  leader  by  himself,  he  foresaw  his  per 
sistence  and  foretold  his  success.  He  had  the  power, 
why  should  he  not  have  his  way?  Early  in  1845 
Mr.  Phillips  wrote  Elizabeth  Pease  :  "  Well,  Texas 
you'll  see  is  coming  in.  We  always  said  it  would 
and  were  laughed  at." 

The  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  On*  the  last  day  of 
February,  only  a  few  days  after  the  date  of  Mr. 
Phillips's  letter,  Mr.  Calhoun,  having  failed  to  carry 
the  Treaty  of  Annexation  through  the  Senate  by  the 
requisite  two-thirds  majority,  accomplished  his  pur 
pose  by  admitting  the  new  slave  State  by  the  uncon 
stitutional  expedient  of  a  joint  resolution  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  and  provided,  besides,  that  it 
should  have  the  option  of  subdividing  its  immense 
area  into  four  slave  States  as  soon  as  it  should  have 
sufficient  population.  Nay,  while  this  legislation 
was  pending,  and  in  the  face  of  the  intense  adverse 
feeling  in  the  North,  he  engineered  the  admission  of 


Quoted  iii  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  137. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2OQ 

Florida  into  the  Union,  side  by  side  with  Iowa,  a 
slave  State  paired  with  a  free  State,  and  saw  to  it 
that  the  constitution  of  Florida,  like  that  of  Mis 
souri,  twenty-five  years  before,  should  contain  a 
clause  making  slavery  perpetual. 

So,  then,  that  had  occurred  which  the  chiefs  of 
the  Whig  party  had  declared  a  sufficient  reason  for 
leaving  the  Union;  nay,  as  ip  so  facto  2^  act  of  dis 
solution.  What  did  they  do  ?  They  backed  down 
and  bowed  their  way  out  of  the  mighty  presence 
with  Eastern  salaams.  They  ate  their  words,  and 
went  in  for  an  era  of  "  good  feeling."  Despite  this 
craven  behavior  of  trusted  men,  the  agitation  had 
aroused  the  North.  The  apparent  success  of  the 
South  was  another  step  toward  its  ultimate  destruc 
tion.  It  was  a  Bunker  Hill  victory.  The  Aboli 
tionists  gained  and  held  a  larger  following  than 
ever  before.  Mr.  Phillips  was  almost  as  content 
with  Mr.  Calhoun's  maintenance  of  his  equilibrium 
as  he  would  have  been  with  his  failure.  For 
the  new  settlement  would  not  stay  settled.  The 
war  with  Mexico  followed  the  annexation  of  Texas. 
As  the  result  additional  Territories  were  ac 
quired.1  These  at  once  raised  the  eternal  question 
of  Pro-Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery.  Mr.  Wilmot, 
of  Pennsylvania,  moved  and  carried  through  the 
House  of  Representatives  a  proviso  (hence  called 
the  "  Wilmot  proviso")  that  slavery  should  never 
exist  in  any  part  of  the  domain  just  wrung  from 
Mexico,  which,  however,  the  Senate  refused  to 
adopt.2  In  opposing  the  bill  in  this  latter  body,  Mr. 
Calhoun  rose  and  pointed  out  that  the  slave  States 


Viz.,  New  Mexico  and  California.  *  In  February,  1847. 


210  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

were  now  in  a  minority  in  the  Lower  House  and  in 
the  Electoral  College,  and  that  in  the  Senate  they 
were  evenly  balanced  against  the  free  States — four 
teen  to  fourteen.  He  added  : 

"  Sir,  the  clay  that  the  balance  between  the  two  sections  of 
the  country — the  slave-holding  States  and  the  non-slave-holding 
States — is  destroyed,  is  a  day  that  will  not  be  far  removed  from 
political  revolution,  anarchy,  civil  war,  and  widespread  disaster. 
The  balance  of  this  system  is  in  the  slave-holding  States.  They 
are  the  conservative  portion,  always  have  been  the  conservative 
portion,  always  will  be  the  conservative  portion,  and,  with  a  due 
balance  on  their  part,  may,  for  generations  to  come,  uphold  this 
glorious  Union  of  ours.  But  if  this  policy  should  be  carried  out, 
woe,  woe  I  say,  to  this  Union  !"  ' 

Apparently  this  was  the  North's  opportunity. 
Had  the  free  States  then  stood  together,  one  of  two 
things  would  have  happened  :  either  the  South  would 
have  precipitated  secession,  or  slavery  would  have 
been  hopelessly  confined  within  the  limits  it  then 
occupied.  In  one  case  the  North  would  not  have 
been  ready  for  the  issue  ;  in  the  other,  slavery  would 
have  been,  as  Charles  II.  apologized  for  being,  "an 
unconscionable  time  in  dying,  "and  the  whole  nation 
would  have  been  convulsed  by  its  death-throes  for  a 
hundred  years.  Hindsight  is  better  than  foresight. 
God  is  wiser  than  man.  The  Almighty  ruled  and 
overruled,  prolonging  the  struggle  until  the  North 
was  ripe  for  the  tremendous  crisis,  and  then  admin 
istered  to  the  hoary  iniquity  the  death-stroke. 

Hence  the  "  f arioso"  utterance  of  Calhoun  fright 
ened  the  mercantile  and  political  classes  of  the  North 
into  their  wonted  servility.  They  cringed  and 
begged  pardon,  reminding  one  of  Sterne's  donkey, 


Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  34, 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  211 

whose  attitude  invited  abuse,  and  seemed  to  say, 
"  Don't  kick  me  !  but  if  you  will  you  may  ;  it  is  per 
fectly  safe."  But  the  renewed  agitation  rendered 
further  service  to  liberty  ;  it  made  more  Abolition 
ists,  and  incensed  many  into  the  ranks  of  the  rising 
political  Anti-Slavery  parties.  There  were  indica 
tions  that  there  would  one  day  be  a  North. 


XIV. 

INCIDENTS. 

THROUGH  the  years  whose  more  public  history 
we  have  outlined  in  the  previous  chapter,  Mr.  Phil 
lips  was  variously  active.  As  often  as  any  fresh 
occurrence  gave  him  a  text  he  preached  a  sermon 
whose  conclusion  was  sure  to  be  Delenda  est  CatJiar- 
go !  For  instance,  his  whilom  opponent  at  Con 
cord,  Squire  Hoar,1  had  been  sent  by  Massachusetts 
to  South  Carolina  to  test  in  the  Federal  courts  in 
that  State  the  constitutionality  of  a  statute  under 
which  colored  seamen  of  Massachusetts  had  been 
flung"  into  jail  for  presuming  to  land  at  Charleston. 
When  Mr.  Hoar  appeared  on  the  scene  he  was  in 
sulted  and  expelled — as  though  he  had  been  himself  a 

nigger. "  Mr.  Phillips  thereupon  urged  the  Bunker 
Hill  State  to  demand  of  the  President  an  enforce 
ment  of  Mr.  Hoar's  plain  constitutional  right  to  re 
side  in  the  Fort  Moultrie  State  :  in  default  of  which 
he  asked  the  Legislature  to  authorize  the  Governor 
to  proclaim  the  Union  at  an  end,  recall  the  Congres 
sional  delegation,  and  provide  for  the  State's  foreign 
relations.2  Instead  of  adopting  this  heroic  remedy, 
Massachusetts  was  content  to  bluster  and — do  noth 
ing. 

But  alas  !  the  State  which  did  nothing  officially  to 


1  Ante,  p.  129,  sqq.  2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xv.,  p.  19, 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  213 

resent  an  indignity,  did  much  through  certain  of  her 
recreant  sons  to  aid  and  comfort  the  slave-masters. 
Slaves  were  constantly  making  their  way  to  the 
North  in  ways  which,  if  we  could  trace  them,  would 
transform  these  pages  into  martyrology.  One  of 
these  black  heroes  secreted  himself,  in  1846,  on  board 
a  Massachusetts  vessel  bound  from  New  Orleans  for 
Boston.  He  was  discovered, — chained, — brought  on 
to  the  Puritan  City — transferred  there  to  another 
Massachusetts  ship,  bound  South, — carried  back  to 
New  Orleans, — and  remanded  to  slavery.  Massachu 
setts  vessels,  Massachusetts  ship-owners,  and  Massa 
chusetts  captains  playing  the  part  of  slave-hounds  !  1 
But  if  the  State  had  sons  to  stain,  it  also  had  sons 
to  vindicate  its  outraged  honor.  Faneuil  Hall  was 
secured.  The  Abolitionists  filled  it.  The  venerable 
John  Quincy  Adams  presided.  The  philanthropist, 
Dr.  S.  G.  Howe,  recited  the  abhorrent  facts.  John 
A.  Andrew  (afterward  the  great  war  governor)  pre 
sented  ringing  resolutions.  Charles  Sumner  (now 
enlisted  for  the  war  against  slavery)  made  one  of  the 
speeches  ;  and  Wendell  Phillips  followed,  and  gib 
beted  the  names  of  the  miscreants,  John  H.  Pierson, 
the  owner,  and  James  W.  Hannum,  the  captain,  to 
eternal  infamy.  "  Let  us  proclaim,"  said  he,  "  that 
law  or  no  law,  Constitution  or  no  Constitution, 
humanity  shall  be  paramount  in  Massachusetts.  I 
would  send  a  voice  from  Faneuil  Hall  that  should 
reach  every  hovel  in  South  Carolina,  and  say  to  the 
slaves,  '  Come  here  and  find  in  Massachusetts  an 
asylum.'  "  3 


1  Austin's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  pp.  130    131. 

2  Ib.t  pp.   131,  132. 


214  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Daniel  Webster  was  horrified  at  this.  "  You  that 
prate  of  disunion,"  he  said,  "  do  you  not  know  that 
disunion  is  Revolution?" 

"  Yes,"  retorted  the  Agitator,  "  we  do  know  it, 
and  we  are  for  a  revolution — a  revolution  in  the  char 
acter  of  the  American  Constitution  !"  1  Well,  it 
came. 

The  Church  then  said  this  was  heresy,  and  the 
State  then  said  this  was  treason.  To-day  both 
Church  and  State  pronounce  it  magnificent — Chris 
tianity  and  patriotism  combined. 

Mr.  Phillips  found  time  amid  these  exciting  hap 
penings  for  other  activities.  One  day  he  went,  with 
Mr.  Garrison,  before  a  committee  of  the  Legislature 
to  argue  against  capital  punishment.  His  speech  is 
a  masterpiece  on  that  side  of  the  question.2  He 
believed  with  Bulwer,  that  "  the  worst  use  you  can 
put  a  man  to  is  to  hang  him. "  Another  day,  he  bore 
witness  to  the  superiority  of  phonography  (then  just 
come  into  use)  over  the  old  method  of  reporting  : 
phonography,  which  snatched  the  words  verbatim 
from  his  lips,3  and  then  bade  the  telegraph  flash  the 
lightning  he  spoke  around  the  globe.  In  the  first  of 
his  speeches  thus  reported  (a  speech  delivered  on 
December  29th,  1846,  at  the  Anti-Slavery  Bazaar,  in 
Faneuii  Hall)  occurs  a  passage  in  which  he  scores 
the  Church  : 

"Is  the  pulpit  forever  to  dwell  in  the  graves  of  the  Jews  ? 
The  scepticism  of  Athens  is  not  found  in  America — that  special 
scepticism  which  Paul  attacked,  when  he  stood  on  Mars  Hill. 
He  directed  his  words  against  living  sins.  We  ask  of  the  suc- 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  7. 

2  /£.,  vol.  xiv.,  p.  23  ;  xv..  p.  3.  3  Ib.t  vol.  xvii.,  p.  7. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  215 

cessors  of  Paul  that  they  take  his  thunderbolt  and  hurl  it,  not  at 
the  graves  of  the  Pharisees,  but  at  the  palaces  of  the  tyrant" 

He  quotes  approvingly  the  saying  of  Dr.  Arnold 
that  the  Church  exists  "  to  put  down  all  moral  evils 
within  or  without  her  own  body  ;"  and  then  pro 
ceeds  : 

"  Anti-Slavery  societies  ought  not  to  have  any  raison  d'etre. 
The  Church  should  do  our  work.  But  she  will  have  nothing  to 
do  with  current  sins.  She  has  the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  but  glues 
it  in  the  scabbard  !  She  puts  on  the  breastplate  of  righteous 
ness,  but  never  goes  into  battle  !  She  has  her  feet  shod  with  the 
Gospel  of  peace,  but  will  not  travel  !"  l 

In  January,  1847,  Theodore  Parker  took  a  house 
in  Essex  Place,  directly  in  the  rear  of  Mr.  Phillips's 
residence — a  happy  occurrence  for  both.  They  dif 
fered  radically  in  their  religious  views  ;  Parker  being 
an  ultra-Unitarian,  while  Phillips  clung  to  the  old 
faith.  But  they  had  much  in  common.  With  both 
liberty  was  a  passion.  They  were  alike,  too,  in  their 
devotion  to  letters  ;  and  still  nearer  akin  in  their 
pitiful  ministry  to  every  form  of  suffering  and  sor 
row.  Parker  was  a  polyglot  man — spoke  or  read 
fifteen  languages.  A  wit  of  the  day  speaks  of  cer 
tain  learned  men  "  who  know  everything  except 
how  to  apply  it."  Parker  knew  how  to  apply  what 
he  knew.  He  had  a  luxurious  library  and  was  never 
happier  than  when  throned  among  his  books — save 
when  he  was  at  work  among  and  for  his  fellows. 
He  was  fond  of  animals — they  were  a  hobby.  Bears 
were  his  special  pets.  He  said  they  were  great, 
humorous  children  [Did  he  think  them  fit  to  hug?]  ; 
and  imagined  they  had  a  wary  Scotch  vein  in  them. 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  7. 


2l6  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

His  home  was  full  of  bears  in  plaster,  ivory,  wood 
(from  Berne),  and  in  seal  metal.  It  was  a  short  and 
economical  way  to  his  heart  to  fetch  him  an  odder 
bear  than  usual.  •  Mr.  Phillips  gave  him  a  French 
caricature  of  the  Revolution  of  1848,  represent 
ing  the  chief  characters  in  the  shape  of  bears— 
which  he  straightway  raised  conspicuously  over  his 
bureau.1 

The  intimacy  between  these  men  became  as  close 
as  though  they  had  been  joined  in  the  marriage  re 
lation — there  was  a  union  of  souls.  Mr.  Phillips  has 
told  how  often,  as  he  looked  from  his  own  chamber 
window  late  at  night,  when  some  lecture  engage 
ment  had  brought  him  home  in  "  the  wee  sma'  hours 
ayont  the  twal',"  he  saw  the  unquenched  light  burn 
ing  in  Parker's  study — "  that  unflagging  student  ever 
at  work."  Then  he  would  turn  away,  murmuring  : 
'  The  trophies  of  Miltiades  will  not  let  me  sleep  !"  2 
Ah,  Mr.  Phillips,  go  to  bed  without  envy  in  your 
heart !  Those  midnight  carousals  with  books  finally 
killed  Theodore  Parker.  Late  hours  arc  as  poison 
ous  to  students  as  the  hemlock  was  to  Socrates. 

In  the  spring  of  the  year  when  Parker  became  his 
neighbor,  Mr.  Phillips,  at  his  own  expense,  published 
a  pamphlet  in  which  he  reviewed  with  great  acute- 
ness  and  a  lavish  display  of  legal  learning,  an  able 
book  by  Mr.  Lysander  Spooner,  on  "  The  Uncon 
stitutionally  of  Slavery."  This  was  his  third  im 
portant  contribution  to  the  current  discussion  of  the 


1  "  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Theodore  Parker,"  by  John  Weiss, 
vol.  i.,  p.  287. 

2  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  18. 

3  This  pamphlet  may  be  found  in  the  Boston  Public  Library— the 
author's  own  copy. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2  I/ 

character  of  that  compact.1  The  large  edition  was 
soon  disposed  of,  and  others  followed.  Simultane 
ously  his  addresses  treated  the  same  issue,  but  in  a 
less  technical  and  more  popular  manner.  As  the 
ancients  had  a  saying  that  all  roads  led  to  Rome,  so 
now  his  utterances,  whether  from  the  press  or  the 
platform,  all  ended  with  the  slogan  :  "  No  Union 
with  Slave-holders." 

It  was  at  this  period,  also,  that  Mr.  Phillips  met 
Eliza  Garnaut.  She  Avas  one  of  those  angels  in 
human  form  who  sometimes  (alas  !  not  often)  come 
into  our  experience  to  renew  our  confidence  in  our 
kind,  and  to  show  us  how  nearly  allied  the  human 
may  be  to  the  divine.  This  lady  was  of  Welsh 
birth.  She  had  married  a  Frenchman,  and  came 
with  him  to  Boston.  He  soon  died,  leaving  her 
with  an  only  child,  a  girl.  Without  means,  she  man 
aged  to  support  herself  and  daughter  ;  and  in  addi 
tion  gave  time  and  money  to  the  destitute  around 
about  her — made  herself  a  common  mother.  Wher 
ever  there  was  poverty, — misfortune, — grief, — down 
fall — there  she  stood,  a  modern  good  Samaritan. 
Some  of  the  noblest  people  in  Boston  made  her  their 
almoner.  Mr.  Phillips  loved  her  as  a  sister  and 
looked  up  to  her  as  a  saint.  He  was  always  helping 
her  with  counsel  and  cash.  When,  in  1849,  Sue  ^ 
a  victim  to  the  cholera,  through  her  unselfish  devo 
tion  to  others,  he  adopted  her  daughter  as  his  own, 
and  Phoebe  Garnaut  became  for  a  few  delightful 
years  to  all  concerned,  Phoebe  Phillips.2  A  relative 


1  Ante,  pp.  143  sqq. 

2  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  18.     For  a  beautiful  tribute  to 
Mrs.  Garnaut,  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Phillips,  see  Liberty  Bell  for  1851. 


2l8  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

of  Mrs.  Phillips  speaks  of  the  welcome  the  child,  then 
twelve  years  old,  met  with  :  "  She  was  a  constant 
joy  to  both — '  Ann  busies  herself  with  lessons  and 
French  exercises  as  when  she  herself  went  to  school/ 
wrote  Mr.  Phillips  ;  who  himself  took  pleasure  in 
directing  the  girl's  education,  and  found  in  her  a 
bright  and  loving  companion,  until  marriage  took 
her  away  to  another  city,  and  finally  to  a  foreign 
land."  l 

The  hatred  then  felt  for  the  Abolitionists  among 
those  who  did  not  and  would  not  understand  their 
motives  and  aims  is  now  incredible.  After  nearly 
twenty  years  of  effort,  and  notwithstanding  the 
always  rising  tide  of  Anti-Slavery  sentiment,  these 
pioneers  of  progress  carried  their  lives  in  their  hands 
within  the  shadow  of  their  own  homes.  One  day  as 
Mr.  Phillips  turned  the  corner  and  walked  toward 
his  house,  he  passed  two  gentlemen — they  seemed 
such  in  dress  and  carriage.  One  remarked  to  the 
other  in  a  tone  evidently  meant  to  be  overheard  and 
with  a  jerk  of  his  head  in  the  direction  of  the  orator  : 

'  I  would  like  to  put  a  bullet  through  that  man's 
heart  !" 

'Benevolent,  wasn't  it?"  was  his  comment  in 
mentioning  it  to  a  friend.2 

Adhering  as  he  did  to  the  religion  of  Christ,  and 
feeling  the  need  of  communion  with  the  divine  Liber 
ator,  he  was  wont  at  this  time  to  meet  on  Sundays 
with  a  few  like-minded  men  and  women  in  private 


1  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  18.     Miss  Garnaut  married,  in 
1860,  Mr.  George  H.  Smalley,  the  well-known  London  correspondent 
of  the  New  York  Tribune. 

2  The   Rev.   A.   J.  Gordon,  of  Boston,   in  New  York  Independent, 
April  lyth,  1884. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  21Q 

houses,  after  the  apostolic  example,  to  observe  the 
holy  service  of  the  Lord's  Supper,1 — this  infidel  ! 
Thus  he  got  fresh  strength  and  courage  to  battle 
against  overwhelming  odds  in  behalf  of  the  Golden 
Rule. 

In  1848  an  address  to  America  against  slavery  came 
from  Scotland,  signed  by  forty  thousand  women. 
It  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  various  Anti- 
Slavery  gatherings  of  the  year.  On  one  of.  these 
occasions,  Mr.  Phillips  paid  a  -tribute  to  this  noble 
host,  and,  incidentally,  as  well  to  the  faithfulness  of 
their  sisters  on  this  side  of  the  water  : 

"  It  was  from  a  woman's  lips  (referring  to  Elizabeth  Herrick) 
that  the  Abolitionists  of  the  old  world  first  heard  the  doctrine 
and  learned  the  lesson  of  immediate  emancipation.  Women's 
voices,  God  bless  them  !  have  ever  been  clear  in  animating  for 
the  conflict  and  in  pointing  out  the  way."  2 

In  January,  1849,  Mr.  Phillips  made  an  aggressive 
speech  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery  Society  in  which  he  reviewed  the  local 
history  of  the  cause  since  his  adhesion  to  it.  He 
alluded  to  a  gathering  in  Faneuil  Hall,  in  1837, 
which  provoked  the  Garrison  mob,  when  Harrison 
Gray  Otis  said  that  he  had  heard  the  Abolitionists 
in  their  madness,  put  the  Bible  above  the  Statute- 
book,  and  when  Peleg  Sprague  endeavored  to  create 
Pro-Slavery  feeling  by  pointing  to  the  portrait  of 
Washington,  and  calling  him  "that  slave-holder." 
He  referred  to  the  encouragement  given  to  the  mur 
derers  of  Lovejoy,  at  Alton,  by  "  that  infamous 

1  Vide  Joseph   Cook  in  his  Monday  lecture  on  Wendell  Phillips, 
Boston,  February  I4th,  1884.     Reported  in  New  York  Independent, 
February  I4th,  1884. 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xviii.,  p.  19. 


220  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

attorney-general,  James  Tricothic  Austin."  He 
then  proceeded  to  call  the  roll  of  the  Boston 
churches : 

"  Where  is  Hubbard  Winslow  ?  Teaching  that  a  minister's 
rule  of  duty,  as  to  what  he  should  teach  and  preach,  is  '  what 
the  brotherhood  will  allow  and  protect.'  Where  is  the  pulpit  of 
the  '  Old  South  '  ?  Sustaining  slavery  as  a  Bible  institution. 
Where  is  Park  Street  ?  Refusing  to  receive  within  its  walls,  for 
funeral  services,  the  body  of  the  only  martyr  the  Orthodox  Con- 
gregationalists  of  New  England  have  had,  Charles  T.  Torrey,1 
and  of  whom  they  were  "not  worthy.  WThere  is  Essex  Street 
church  ?  Teaching  that  there  are  occasions  when  the  Golden 
Rule  is  to  be  set  aside.  Where  is  Federal  Street  church  ? 
Teaching  that  silence  is  the  duty  of  the  North  with  respect  to 
slavery,  and  closing  its  doors  to  the  funeral  eulogy  of  the  Aboli 
tionist  Follen,  the  bosom  friend  of  the  only  man  who  will  make 
Federal  Street  pulpit  to  be  remembered,  William  Ellery  Chan- 
ning.  And  I  might  ask,  where  are  the  New  South  and  Brattle 
Street  ?  but  they  are  not  /"  2 

This  speech  made  a  sensation.  It  stabbed  the 
ecclesiastical  traitors  to  liberty  with  interrogation 
marks — no  wonder  they  gasped  out  their  rage. 

The  annexation  of  Texas  and  the  successful  war 
against  ill-used  Mexico  had  enlarged,  actually  and 
even  more  prospectively,  the  area  of  the  South,  and 
the  value  of  the  slaves  was  enhanced.  According 
to  the  Richmond  Enquirer,  male  negroes  were  now 
worth  "  seven  hundred  dollars  around."  When 
seven  hundred  dollars  funded  in  ebony  took  to  its 
heels  and  ran  away,  the  slave-masters  felt  in  their 


1  Mr.  Torrey  was  a  Northern  clergyman  and  Abolitionist  who  had 
been  imprisoned  and  martyred  at  the  South  for  aiding  slaves  to 
escape. 

'2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xix.,  2d  week  in  February. 

3  Compare  Liberator,  vol.  xxvii.,  p.  i. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  221 

pockets  a  vacuum  which  they,  like  nature,  ab 
horred.  Their  two-footed  property  kept  doing  this. 
And  when  the  seven  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  flesh 
and  blood  reached  the  North,  the  Abolitionists  saw 
only  the  man  or  woman  and  could  not  see  the  prop 
erty — no,  not  with  a  magnifying-glass.  This  ten 
dency  of  this  peculiar  kind  of  value  to  scoot  (always 
Northward),  coupled  with  the  poor  eyesight  of 
growing  numbers  up  here,  which  disabled  them  from 
seeing  the  flight,  kept  the  lords  of  the  plantation  in 
a  condition  of  chronic  fretfulness.  Worse  yet,  there 
was  a  regular  "  underground  railroad"  in  the  North, 
with  stations,  conductors,  and  free  cars,  operated  (so 
the  South  learned)  for  the  very  purpose  of  spiriting 
away  as  many  embodiments  of  the  aforesaid  seven 
hundred  dollars  as  cared  to  ride  on  it.  Toward  the 
end  of  May,  1849,  several  of  these  "  chattels  per 
sonal"  suddenly  appeared  in  Boston,  en  route  for 
Canada,  and  stopped  for  refreshments  at  Faneuil 
Hall — the  restaurant  of  liberty.  One  of  these  was 
"  Box"  Brown;  so  called,  because  he  had  escaped 
from  Virginia  in  a  box  as  merchandise — not  a  proper 
method  of  shipping  live  stock,  for  it  nearly  proved 
his  coffin.  Two  others  were  William  and  Ellen 
Craft,  husband  and  wife.  She  being  almost  white, 
had  disguised  herself  in  male  attire  as  an  invalid 
seeking  medical  treatment  at  the  North,  while  her 
darker  husband  figured  in  the  role  of  her  negro 
"  boy" — all  of  which  was  quite  orthodox  and  consti 
tutional,  as  it  should  seem.  Well,  Wendell  Phillips 
fed  them  in  Faneuil  Hall,  and  amid  thunders  of  ap 
proval  cried  : 

"  We  say  in  beha?f  of  these  hunted  beings,  whom  God  created, 
and  whom  law-abiding  Webster  and  Winthrop  have  sworn  shall 


222  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

not  find  shelter  in  Massachusetts, — we  say  that  they  may  make 
their  little  motions,  and  pass  their  little  laws,  in  Washington,  but 
that  Faneuil  Hall  REPEALS  them,  in  the  name  of  humanity  and 
the  old  Bay  State  !"  J 

With  which  defiance  we  ring  down  the  curtain. 


Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xix.,  p.  90. 


XV. 

THE   DEVIL'S   GOSPEL.        . 

MR.  PHILLIPS  commenced  the  year  1850  by  the 
delivery  of  a  lecture  before  the  Mercantile  Library 
Association  of  Boston,  on  the  "  Philosophy  of  Re 
form."  The  audience  was  immense  ;  the  subject 
one  with  which  the  lecturer  was  en  rapport ;  the  re 
sult,  the  introduction  of  his  sentiments  where  they 
had  not  been  heard  before.1 

At  this  date  the  national  situation  may  be  thus 
summarized  : 

California  stood  knocking  at  the  door  of  the  Union 
for  admission  as  a  free  State — a  new  danger  to  Mr. 
Calhoun's  equilibrium.  The  "  Free  Soil  party," 
child  and  successor  of  the  old  Liberty  party,  the 
latest  political  coalition  against  the  extension  and 
domination  of  slavery,  had  come  into  the  field  in 
1848,  when  it  cast  an  ominous  vote  for  its  Presiden 
tial  candidate,  and  was  now  vigorously  preparing  to 
better  the  record  in  the  approaching  canvas  of  1852. 
The  Whig  party  was  divided  into  two  warring  fac 
tions,  the  "Conscience"  Whigs,  who  were  unalter 
ably  opposed  to  the  further  spread  of  the  "  peculiar 
institution,"  and  the  "  Cotton"  Whigs,  who  put  the 
desire  to  make  money  in  the  place  of  conscience,  and 
went  up  and  down  crying  "  Peace,  peace"  when 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  p.  7. 


224  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

there  was  no  peace.  The  Democratic  party  was 
animated  and  controlled  by  the  South,  and  was  com 
posed  of  the  slave-holders,  booted  and  spurred  to 
ride,  and  of  donkey  Northerners,  saddled  and  bridled 
to  be  ridden.  The  Abolitionists  were  still  few,  but 
made  up  for  their  lack  of  numbers  by  their  sleepless 
activity.  They  were  the  only  consistent  and  un 
compromising  foes  of  slavery, — the  only  ones  who 
contended  not  only  for  its  restriction  but  for  its  de 
struction  ;  which  they  were  enabled  to  clo  because 
they  stood  outside  of  all  parties,  untrammelled  by 
Constitutional  limitations  ;  and  they  were  hated  and 
feared  because  of  their  position  on  the  morals  of  the 
case.  The  plantation  barons  were  sulky.  Their 
biped  "property"  had  mastered  enough  astronomy 
to  distinguish  the  North  Star,  and  had  mustered 
enough  manhood  to  run  for  it.  Meanwhile,  large 
sections  of  the  free  States  covertly  co-operated  with 
the  fugitives,  and  openly  refused  to  return  them  to 
the  house  of  bondage.  The  scene  was  one  of  be 
wildering  confusion — dizzy  as  a  dance  of  dervishes. 

In  these  circumstances,  Mr.  Clay  stole  a  leaf  from 
the  devil's  gospel — he  proposed  a  compromise. 
This  was  the  unfailing  resource  of  the  "  Artful 
Dodgers"  who  substituted  expedients  for  justice, 
and  who  imagined  that  statesmanship  was  shown  by 
trimming.  As  though  God  could  be  hoodwinked 
by  men  !  As  though  the  crater  of  Vesuvius  could 
be  stuffed  up  with  a  tuft  of  cotton  !  Either  Calhoun 
was  right  or  Phillips  was  right.  If  Calhoun  was 
right,  slavery  was  a  benign  institution,  and  had  a 
claim  to  be  domesticated  everywhere — like  the  cotton 
it  produced.  If  Phillips  was  right,  slavery  was  "  the 
sum  of  all  villanies, "  and  had  no  claim  to  be  tolerated 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  225 

anywhere.  Between  these  two  positions  there  was 
no  logical  standing-place.  The  turmoil  of  fifty  years 
originated  in  the  inability  or  unwillingness  of  this 
country  to  recognize  this  plain  fact — in  the  attempt 
to  make  two  and  two  count  five  instead  of  four.  In 
questions  of  mere  expediency,  compromise  is  what 
Macaulay  termed  it,  "  the  essence  of  politics."  All 
parties  agree  to  give  up  something  to  carry  a  com 
mon  point.  But  when  fundamental  right  and  wrong 
are  involved,  compromise  is  a  compounding  of 
felony.  It  is  like  promising  the  burglar  who  has 
broken  into  your  house  and  slain  your  children,  that 
you  will  not  prosecute  him  for  murder  if  he  will  re 
store  the  family  plate. 

Mr.  Clay's  programme  was,  substantially,  this  :  to 
admit  California  as  a  free  State  ;  to  organize  the 
Territories  stolen  from  Mexico  without  raising  the 
question  of  slavery,  leaving  them  to  decide  that  ques 
tion  for  themselves  ;  to  gratify  Northern  sentiment, 
not  by  abolishing  slavery  in  the  District  of  Colum 
bia,  but  by  forbidding  the  sale  of  slaves  in  the  Wash 
ington  markets  ;  and  to  satisfy  Southern  cupidity  by 
the  passage  of  a  stringent  law  for  the  return  of  fugi 
tive  slaves.  Like  any  other  vendor  of  patent  nos 
trums,  he  expatiated  on  the  advantage  of  such  a 
measure  :  It  would  kill  the  Free  Soil  party  ;  for  they 
only  claimed  what  .was  now  conceded, — the  abolition 
of  the  slave-trade  under  the  shadow  of  the  Capitol, 
and  the  non-extension  of  slavery  into  the  Territories 
under  Governmental  auspices  ;  it  would  quiet  the 
South  ;  for  their  property  was  secured  at  the  North 
as  well  as  at  home,  while  there  were  no  exclusive 
fences  in  the  Territories. 

The  great  compromiser,  after  the  habit  of  his  kind, 


226  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

forgot  that  God  was  not  dead.  He  also  ignored  the 
Abolitionists,  who  were  as  hot  against  slavery  in  the 
slave  States  as  they  were  against  its  introduction 
into  the  Territories.  Of  course,  therefore,  Mr.  Phil 
lips  scouted  the  juggle.  Nor  was  Mr.  Calhoun 
much  better  pleased  with  it  ;  for  Mr.  Clay's  panacea 
did  not  preserve  his  equilibrium.  With  California 
admitted,  there  would  be  sixteen  free,  and  only  fifteen 
slave  States.  Besides,  believing  that  slaves  were 
legitimate  property,  he  held,  logically  enough,  that 
this  kind  of  possession  should  go  wherever  a  horse 
or  a  plough  or  a  bond  might  be  carried — had  a  right 
to  the  same  protection.  But  before  the  uncompro 
mising  Southerner  could  develop  his  opposition, 
death  snatched  him  away.1 

While  Clay's  legislation  was  pending,  all  eyes  were 
turned  upon  Daniel  Webster.  Would  he  throw  the 
weight  of  his  great  name  in  the  scale  of  compro 
mise  ?  Would  he  now  lead  the  ' '  Conscience"  Whigs 
and  create  a  North  ?  It  was  an  hour  of  hope  and  of 
fear.  On  March  /th,  1850,  Mr.  Webster  slowly  rose 
in  the  Senate,  faced  South  instead  of  North,  and, 
speaking  with  the  ponderous  deliberation  character 
istic  of  his  oratory,  advocated  the  Kentuckian's  bill 
without  an  if  or  an  and,  and  especially  announced 
his  purpose  to  carry  out  the  fugitive-slave  clause 
"  with  all  its  provisions,  to  the  furthest  extent." 

It  was  the  completest,  saddest,  most  disastrous 
surrender  ever  made.  The  favorite  son  of  New 
England  thought  to  secure  the  Presidency  by  this 
act.  In  reality  he  committed  both  moral  and  politi 
cal  suicide.  True,  his  advocacy  carried  the  corn- 


Mr.  Calhoun  died  March  3ist,  1850. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  22/ 

promise  measure  through  the  Senate  and  through 
the  House  and  made  it  law.  True,  he  was  thanked 
for  his  course  by  the  representatives  of  Massachu 
setts  commerce,  letters,  theology,  and  law,  in  an 
open  letter  which  Rufus  Choate,  William  Appleton, 
George  Ticknor,  W.  H.  Prescott,  Professor  Moses 
Stuart,  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard  Woods,  signed, 
with  seven  hundred  other  dousrh  faces.1  But  he  dis- 

O 

gusted  the  South  itself,  which  refused  to  give  him 
even  the  empty  honor  of  a  nomination  at  the  Whig 
Convention,  a  year  or  two  later.  And  he  alienated 
those  Anti-Slavery  Whigs  who  had  believed  in  him 
and  followed  him,  but  who  now  swore  at  him  instead 
of  by  him.  Clothed  with  shame  and  gnawed  by 
chagrin,  he  died  not  long  afterward,  and  was  sepul 
chred  in  dishonor.  By  a  striking  coincidence,  his 
colleague  in  infamy,  Henry  Clay,  less  enlightened  and 
therefore  less  guilty,  by  a  few  months  preceded 
him  to  the  grave.2  Unhappily  their  juggle  "  still 
lived." 

But  the  measure  intended  to  quench  only  inflamed 
the  fire.  It  was  popularly  known  by  its  most  famous 
(and  infamous)  provision,  as  the  "  Fugitive  Slave 
Law."  This  was  the  special  feature  that  aroused 
the  wrath  of  the  North.  For  this  made  slave-hunt 
ing  a  duty  and  sought  to  transform  every  freeman 
into  a  slave-catcher.  It  placed  the  liberty  of  any 
colored  man  who  might  be  claimed  and  seized  any 
where  at  the  mercy  of  any  commissioner,  marshal, 
or  clerk  of  any  Federal  court  ;  nay,  of  any  collector 
of  customs,  or  any  postmaster.  It  affixed  to  the  res- 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  pp.  55,  57,  62. 

2  Webster  died  October  24th,  1852  ;  Clay,  June  2gth,  1852. 


228  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

cue,  or  attempted  rescue,  or  even  to  the  harboring, 
of  such  an  one,  a  fine  of  one  thousand  dollars,  to 
gether  with  six  months'  imprisonment.1 

This  atrocious  statute,  and  Mr.  Webster's  connec 
tion  with  it,  were  indignantly  condemned  in  Faneuil 
Hall,  on  March  25th,  1850,  by  a  vast  concourse  of 
citizens.  The  Hon.  Samuel  S.  Sewall  presided. 
Theodore  Parker  spoke,  and  was  followed  by  Wen 
dell  Phillips,  who  riddled  the  recreant  New  England 
statesman,  as  years  before  in  the  same  hall  he  had 
the  smaller  renegade  who  defended  the  Alton  mur 
derers.2 

But  the  Abolitionists  did  not  have  it  all  their  own 
way.  The  legislation  at  Washington  resurrected 
the  mob  spirit,  and  1850  repeated  1835.  The  annual 
meeting  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  held 
in  New  York,  in  May,  is  an  illustration.  Its  advent, 
was  heralded  by  a  satanic  outburst  from  the  press 
of  the  city,  invoking  riot  and  instigating  violence. 
A  crowd  of  roughs,  headed  by  one  Captain  Rynders, 
a  typical  bully,  took  possession  of  the  galleries  of 
the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  where  the  opening  ses 
sion  was  held,  and  set  disorder  afoot.  Amid  con 
stant  interruptions  and  to  an  accompaniment  of  in 
sults  spiced  with  profanity  the  earlier  speakers  inter 
jected  their  words.  Then  uprose  a  seedy-looking 
mobocrat,  who  undertook  to  prove  that  the  negroes 
were  not  men  but  monkeys.  Frederick  Douglass, 
came  forward  and  said  : 

"  The  gentleman  who  has  just  spoken  has  under 
taken  to  prove  that  the  blacks  are  not  human  beings. 


1  The  law  is  given  in  the  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  p.  153. 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  ist  week  in  April. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  22Q 

He  has  examined  our  whole  conformation,  from  top 
to  toe.     I  cannot  follow  him  in  his  argument.     I  will 

O 

assist  him  in  it,  however.     I  offer  myself  for  exami 
nation.     Am  la  man  ?" 

The  audience  responded  with  a  thunderous  affirm 
ative,  which  Captain  Rynders  sought  to  break  by 
exclaiming  :  "  You  are  not  a  black  man  ;  you  are 
only  half  a  nigger."  "  Then,"  replied  Mr.  Doug 
lass,  turning  upon  him  with  the  blandest  of  smiles, 
and  an  almost  affectionate  obeisance,  "  I  am  half- 
brother  to  Captain  Rynders  !"  He  would  not  deny 
that  he  was  the  son  of  a  slave-holder,  born  of  South 
ern  "  amalgamation  ;"  a  fugitive,  too,  like  Kossuth 
— "  another  half-brother  of  mine"  (to  Rynders).  He 
spoke  of  the  difficulties  thrown  in  the  way  of  indus 
trious  colored  people  at  the  North,  as  he  had  himself 
experienced — this  by  way  of  answer  to  Horace 
Greeley,  who  had  recently  complained  of  their  in 
efficiency  and  dependence.  Criticism  of  the  editor 
of  the  Tribune  being  grateful  to  Rynders,  a  political 
adversary,  he  added  a  word  to  Douglass's  against 
Greeley.  '  I  am  happy,"  said  Douglass,  "  to  have 
the  assent  of  my  half-brother  here,"  pointing  to 
Rynders,  and  convulsing  the  audience  with  laugh 
ter.  After  this  Rynders,  finding  how  he  was  played 
with,  took  care  to  hold  his  peace  ;  but  some  one  of 
Rynders's  company  in  the  gallery  undertook  to  in 
terrupt  the  speaker.  "  It's  of  no  use,"  said  Mr. 
Douglass,  "  I've  Captain  Rynders  here  to  back  me. 
We  were  born  here,"  he  said,  finally,  "  we  are  not 
dying  out,  and  we  mean  to  stay  here.  We  made 
the  clothes  you  have  on,  the  sugar  you  put  into  your 
tea.  We  would  do  more  if  allowed."  "  Yes,"  said 
a  voice  in  the  crowd,  "  you  would  cut  our  throats 


230  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

for  us."  "No,"  was  the  quick  response,  "but  we 
would  cut  your  hair  for  you.' ' 

Douglass  concluded  his  triumphant  remarks  by 
calling-  upon  the  Rev.  Samuel  Ward,  editor  of  the 
Impartial  Citizen,  to  succeed  him.  "  All  eyes,"  says 
an  eye-witness,  "  were  instantly  turned  to  the  back 
of  the  platform,  or  stage,  rather,  so  dramatic  was  the 
scene  ;  and  there,  amid  a  group,  stood  a  large  man,  so 
black  that,  as  Wendell  Phillips  said,  when  he  shut 
his  eyes  you  could  not  see  him.  As  he  approached, 
Rynders  exclaimed  :  '  Well,  this  is  the  original  nig 
ger  !  '  'I've  heard  of  the  magnanimity  of  Captain 
Rynders,'  said  Ward,  '  but  the  half  has  not  been 
told  me  !  '  And  then  he  went  on  with  a  noble  voice, 
and  his  speech  was  such  a  strain  of  eloquence  as  I 
never  heard  excelled  before  or  since.  The  mob  had 
to  applaud  him,  too,  and  it  is  the  highest  praise 
to  record  that  his  unpremeditated  utterance  main 
tained  the  level  of  Douglass's,  and  ended  the  meet 
ing  with  a  sense  of  climax — demonstrating  alike 
the  humanity  and  the  capacity  of  the  full-blooded 
negro."  ' 

The  session  ended  before  Mr.  Phillips  could  speak. 
The  fears  of  the  owners  of  the  building  closed  it 
against  the  Abolitionists  thereafter,  and  they  were 
mobbed  out  of  the  hall  of  the  Society  Library, 
whither  they  had  betaken  themselves  for  refuge. 
"  Thus,"  remarked  the  New  York  Tribune  the  next 
morning,  "  closed  Anti-Slavery  free  discussion  in 
New  York  for  1850." 


1  The  above  account  is  taken  from  the  report  of  the  meeting  writ 
ten  by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Furness,  of  Philadelphia,  an  eye-witness,  and 
quoted  in  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  Hi.,  pp.  294,  295. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  231 

It  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  Rev.  Henry_Ward_ 
Beecher,  not  then  an  Abolitionist,  performed  one^of 
the"  bravesFlufts  of  his  life^vjgpening  Plymouth 
Church  to  Wendell  Phillips,  and  appearing  with  him 
on  the  platform,  to  signify  his  appreciation  of  free 
speech.  "  I  was  amazed,"  wrote  he,  referring  to  it, 
"  at  the  unagitated  Agitator, — so  calm,  so  fearless,  so 
incisive, — every  word  a  bullet.  I  never  heard  a  more 
effective  speech  than  Mr.  Phillips's  that  night.  He 
seemed  inspired,  and  played  with  his  audience  (tur 
bulent,  of  course)  as  Gulliver  might  with  the  Lilipu- 
tians.  He  had  the  dignity  of  Pitt,  the  vigor  of  Fox, 
the  wit  of  Sheridan,  the  satire  of  Junius, — and  a  grace 
and  music  all  his  own.  Then  for  the  first  time  did 
Plymouth  Church  catch  and  echo  those  matchless 
tones.  I  mean  it  shall  not  be  the  last  time."  l 

At  the  anniversary  of  the  New  England  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  held  in  Boston,  two  weeks  later, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  re-enact  the  scenes  in  New 
York — with  but  partial  success  ;  for  Parker,  Garri 
son,  and  Phillips  all  had  their  say  in  splendid  fashion, 
though  their  remarks  were  punctuated  in  a  manner 
which  no  printer  would  have  sanctioned.2 

Mr.  Phillips  tossed  out  some  of  his  most  pungent 
sentences:  this,  for  example:  "Abolitionists  risk 
bankruptcy  for  obeying  commands  which  the  pul 
pits  preach,  and  then  fine  us  for  practising." 

And  this  :  "  We  have  had  here,  in  Massachusetts, 
Ellen  Craft,  a  fugitive  from  slavery,  and  now  Daniel 
Webster,  a  fugitive  into  slavery."  * 

He  issued  during  this  year  a  pamphlet  in  which 


1  Letter  of  Mr.  Beecher  to  Oliver  Johnson  (MS.). 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  pp.  89,  go.  3  /#.,  p.  98. 


232  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

he  examined  from  the  successive  standpoints  of  law, 
ethics,  history,  and  humanity,  the  position  of  Mr. 
Webster,  and  reached  the  conclusion  which  Whittier 
announced  in  the  terrible  title  of  his  poem  on  the 
moral  suicide—  '  Ichabod."  ' 

On  September  i8th,  in  this  memorable  year,  Millard 
Fillmore,  who  succeeded  to  the  Presidency  on  the 
death  of  General  Taylor,2  signed  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Bill,  which  thus  became  a  law.  Happy  Taylor,  re 
lieved  from  this  dreadful  guilt  !  Unhappy  Fillmore, 
pilloried  forever  in  the  curses  of  mankind  ! 

The  venerable  Josiah  Quincy8  headed  a  call  for  a 
meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall  to  consider  the  condition  of 
the  fugitive  slaves  and  other  colored  people  under  the 
new  statute.  The  meeting  was  held  on  October  I4th, 
amid  intense  excitement.  Charles  Francis  Adams 
(the  son  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  had  died  in 
1848)  took  the  chair.  Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  offered 
the  resolutions  which  demanded  the  repeal  of  a 
measure  repugnant  to  moral  sense, — promised  to  de 
fend  the  colored  people, — and  advised  them  to  remain 
where  they  were.  Theodore  Parker,  Frederick 
Douglass,  and  Wendell  Phillips  spoke  in  no  uncer 
tain  tone,  vocalizing  and  manufacturing  public 
opinion.4 

The  result  was  seen  in  November,  when  the  Whig 
party  was  snowed  under  by  Massachusetts  ballots  ; 
and  yet  more  emphatically  the  next  year,  when 
(Webster  having  been  called  into  President  Fill- 
more's  Cabinet)  Charles  Sumner  was  elected  to  re- 


1  The  pamphlet  is  in  the  Boston  Public  Library. 

2  On  July  gth,  1850.  *Ante,  p.  22. 
4  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  jc^. ,  p.  l6§. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  233 

place  him  in  the  Senate1 — the  high-water  mark  thus 
far  of  Anti-Slavery  sentiment. 

The  following  extract  from  a  speech  which  Mr. 
Sumner  delivered  in  Faneuil  Hall  upon  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  sharply  contrasts  the  new  senator  with 
the  old  one,  and  bravely  helped  to  lift  him  into  the 
seat  of  Webster  : 

"  The  soul  sickens  in  the  contemplation  of  this  legalized  out- 
rage.  In  the  dreary  annals  of  the  past,  there  are  many  acts  of 
shame — there  are  ordinances  of  monarchs,  and  laws,  which  have 
become  a  byword  and  a  hissing  to  the  nations.  But,  when  we 
consider  the  country  and  the  age,  I  ask  fearlessly,  What  act  of 
shame,  what  ordinance  of  monarch,  what  law  can  compare  in 
atrocity  with  this  enactment  of  an  American  Congress  ?  (None.) 
I  do  not  forget  Appius  Claudius,  the  tyrant  Decemvir  of  ancient 
Rome,  condemning  Virginia  as  a  slave  ;  nor  Louis  XIV.,  of 
France,  letting  slip  the  dogs  of  religious  persecution  by  the 
revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  ;  nor  Charles  I.,  of  England, 
arousing  the  patriot-rage  of  Hampden  by  the  extortion  of  ship- 
money  ;  nor  the  British  Parliament,  provoking,  in  our  own 
country,  spirits  kindred  to  Hampden,  by  the  tyranny  of  the  Stamp 
Act  and  the  Tea  Tax.  I  would  not  exaggerate  ;  I  wish  to  keep 
within  bounds  ;  but  I  think  no  person  can  doubt  the  condemna 
tion  now  affixed  to  all  these  transactions,  and  to  their  authors, 
must  be  the  lot  hereafter  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  and  of  every 
one,  according  to  the  measure  of  his  influence,  who  gave  it  his 
support.  (Three  cheers  -were  here  given.}  Into  the  immortal 
catalogue  of  national  crimes  this  has  now  passed,  drawing  after 
it,  by  an  inexorable  necessity,  its  authors  also,  and  chiefly  him, 
who,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  set  his  name  to  the  bill, 
and  breathed  into  it  that  final  breath  without  which  it  would 
have  no  life.  (Sensation.)  Other  Presidents  maybe  forgotten  ; 
but  the  name  signed  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Bill  can  never  be  for 
gotten.  (Never  /)  There  are  depths  of  infamy,  as  there  are 
heights  of  fame.  (Applause.)  I  regret  to  say  what  I  must ;  but 


1  By  a  vote  of   193  out  of  286— just  enough  to  elect,  and  after  a 
long  struggle. 


234  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

truth  compels  me.  Better  for  him  had  he  never  been  born  ! 
(Renewed  applause.}  Better  far  for  his  memory,  and  for  the 
good  name  of  his  children,  had  he  never  been  President  !"  (Re 
peated  cheers.)1 

With  Phillips  under  Bunker  Hill  monument  and 
Sumner  in  Washington,  Massachusetts  had  reason 
to  feel  proud. 


1  Vide  Works  of  Charles  Sumner,  speech  on  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 


XVI. 

THE    WOMEN,    AND   A   MAN. 

THE  feelings  of  Mr.  Phillips  with  regard  to  women 
have  been  indicated, — his  respectful  admiration  for 
them, — his  chivalrous  espousal  of  their  cause  when 
any  Rebecca  needed  an  Ivanhoe, — his  profound  belief 
in  their  capacity  for  a  wider  life  than  custom  ac 
corded  them.  Holding  such  views,  he  gave  a  warm 
indorsement  to  a  proposal  for  a  Women's  Rights 
Convention,  which  was  made  in  the  summer  of  1850, 
at  one  of  the  Anti-Slavery  meetings,  and  with  Mrs. 
Phillips  signed  the  call.  It  was  always  a  gratifica 
tion  to  him  that  this  cause  should  have  been  the  issue 
of  the  Abolition  movement — as  Eve  was  taken  from 
the  side  of  Adam. 

The  Convention  met  at  Worcester,  in  Massachu 
setts,  on  October  23d  and  24th,  1850,'  year  of  won 
ders  !  The  attendance  was  large,  the  women  being 
in  the  majority,  but  the  men  having  fit  representatives 
in  Phillips  and  Garrison  and  Douglass,  who  stood  for 
the  Anti-Slavery  interest,  and  in  Sargent  and  Chan- 
ning,  from  the  liberal  pulpit.  No  phonographic  re 
port  of  the  proceedings  was  made.  But  enough  is 
known  of  what  was  said  and  done  to  justify  the  state 
ment  that  those  present  consciously  and  worthily 
launched  the  most  magnificent  reform  ever  under- 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  p.  142. 


236  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

taken, — an  effort  in  behalf,  not  of  a  race  (like  Anti- 
Slavery),  nor  of  a  nation  (like  the  revolt  of  the  colo 
nies),  but  of  a  sex.1  The  immediate  result  was  the 
perfecting  of  an  organization  on  a  national  basis, 
with  the  appointment  of  a  central  committee,  of 
which  Mr.  Phillips  was  made  treasurer.2  Europe, 
too,  answered  to  America.  The  Westminster  Review 
noticed  the  Convention  in  an  elaborate  article  writ 
ten  by  Mrs.  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  indorsed  it  :  so 
that  the  women's  cause  dates  in  Old  England  as  in 
New  England  from  this  gathering  at  Worcester. 

The  wits  of  the  pot-house  and  the  what-nows  of 
society  were  equally  and  mightily  amused.  Those 
twanged  their  bow-strings  and  sped  their  arrows  of 
ridicule  at  so  plain  a  target.  These  coughed  under 
the  handkerchief,  and  ogled  behind  the  door,  and 
lamented  the  immodesty  of  "  such  brazen  women." 
The  "  Hen  Convention"  was  the  name  given  it  by 
the  press.  A  certain  Universalist  clergyman  (whose 
name  it  would  be  cruel  to  give)  announced  from  his 
pulpit  a  meeting  at  which  Lucy  Stone  was  to  speak 
in  these  words  :  "  To-night,  at  the  Town  Flail,  a  hen 
will  attempt  to  crow."  This  was  wit  in  1850 — as  the 
word  "  nigger"  was  humanity  !  3 

Early  in  the  following  year,  Mr.  Phillips  wrote  an 
account  of  his  experiences  at  Worcester  to  his  friend, 
Miss  Pease,  across  the  water  : 

"  You  would  have  enjoyed  the  Women's  Convention.  I  think 
I  never  saw  a  more  intelligent  and  highly  cultivated  audience, 
more  ability  guided  by  the  best  taste  on  a  platform,  more  deep, 
practical  interest,  on  any  occasion.  It  took  me  completely  by 


Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  p.  1 8 1.  2  Ib. 

3  Remarks  of  Mrs.  H.  H.  Robinson,  quoted  in  Austin's  "  Life  and 
Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  155. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  237 

surprise  ;  and  the  women  were  the  ablest  speakers,  too.  You 
would  have  laughed,  as  we  used  to  do  in  1840,  to  hear  dear 
Lucretia  iWott  answer  me.  I  had  presumed  to  d.ffer  from  her, 
and  asserted  that  the  cause  would  meet  more  immediate  and  pal 
pable  and  insulting  opposition  from  women  than  from  men — and 
scolded  them  for  it.  She  put,  as  she  so  well  knows  how,  the 
silken  snapper  on  her  whiplash,  and  proceeded  to  give  me  the 
gentlest  and  yet  most  cutting  rebuke.  'Tvvas  like  her  old  fire 
when  London  Quakers  angered  her  gentleness— and  beautifully 
done,  so  that  the  victim  himself  could  enjoy  the  artistic  perfec 
tion  of  his  punishment."  1 

Mr.  Phillips  adhered  to  his  opinion,  nevertheless  ; 
and  time  has  shown  that  he  was  correct.  Women 
themselves  have  been  the  most  heated  and  the  most 
influential  opponents  of  their  own  cause.  Were 
they  a  unit,  they  could  carry  it  to  success  in  a  week. 

On  October  29th,  George  Thompson,2  the  English 
orator,  landed  in  Boston — his  second  visit  to  Ameri 
ca.  The  first  was  in  1835,  when  he  was  mobbed  out 
of  the  country  for  his  Abolitionism.  He  found  affairs 
much  as  he  left  them  ;  so  that  he  might  have  rubbed 
his  eyes  and  asked  himself  whether  he  had  really 
been  absent  for  fifteen  years.3  At  a  reception  given 
him  by  the  Abolitionists  in  Faneuil  Hall,  on  Novem 
ber  1 5th,  a  throng  of  rowdies  made  themselves 
masters  of  ceremonies  and  howled  so  lustily  that  no 
one  could  get  a  hearing  ;  not  more  Wendell  Phillips 
than  George  Thompson  himself.4  "  No  matter," 
said  Mr.  Phillips  ;  "  the  truth  will  float  farther  on  the 
hisses  of  a  mob  than  the  most  eloquent  lips  can  carry 
it." 

Shouted  down  in  Boston,  the  Abolitionists  with 


1  Quoted  in  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  312,  note. 

2  Ante,  p.  102. 

3  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  305.  4  /<£.,  p.  306. 


238  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

their  guest  went  to  Worcester— appealed  from  the 
pocket  to  the  heart  of  the  commonwealth.  Here 
they  enjoyed  a  feast  of  reason  and  a  flow  of  soul. 
Thompson  spoke  magnificently,  to  sympathetic  thou 
sands,  and  so  did  Phillips.  It  was  on  this  occasion 
that  the  latter  uttered  the  famous  sentence  in  which 
he  laid  a  hand  on  the  most  prominent  features  of 
American  geography.  After  referring  to  the  failure 
of  the  European  revolutionary  movements  in  1848, 
he  burst  forth  : 

"  The  Carpathian  Mountains  may  shelter  tyrants.  The  slopes 
of  Germany  may  bear  up  a  race  more  familiar  with  the  Greek 
text  than  with  the  Greek  phalanx.  For  aught  I  know,  the  wave 
of  Russian  rule  may  sweep  so  far  westward  as  to  fill  once  more 
with  miniature  despots  the  robber  castles  of  the  Rhine.  But  of 
this  I  am  sure  :  God  piled  the  Rocky  Mountains  as  the  ramparts 
of  freedom.  He  scooped  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi  as  the 
cradle  of  free  States.  He  poured  Niagara  as  the  anthem  of  free 
men."  1 

In  the  first  month  of  the  new  year2  there  was  a 
soiree  in  Chochituate  Hall,  in  Boston,  to  celebrate 
the  twentieth  anniversary  of  Mr.  Garrison's  paper, 
the  Liberator.  It  was  an  occasion  of  rare  interest, 
and  rallied  the  entire  social  and  oratorical  strength 
of  local  Abolitionism.  In  the  course  of  the  evening, 
George  Thompson  presented  to  Mr.  Garrison  a  gold 
watch  appropriately  inscribed  ;  and  amid  delightful 
chat,  interspersed  with  addresses  from  the  various 
sons  of  thunder  present,  the  hours  sped.  Mr.  Phil 
lips  paints  the  scene — again  for  the  delectation  of 
Elizabeth  Pease  : 

"  You  would  have  enjoyed  the  soirte,  perfectly  extempore — so 
much  so  that  E.  Q.  did  not  know  he  was  to  be  chairman  until  I 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  p.  195.  'l  January  24th,  1851. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  239 

moved  it,  and  then  he  filled  the  chair  with  the  wit  and  readi 
ness  that  is  possessed  by  all  the  Quincys.  It  was  unique — the 
heartiest  Anti-Slavery  gathering  I  ever  saw.  Thompson  had 
been  very  ill  in  the  country  and  was  looking  quite  ghastly,  fit  for 
a  sick-bed,  but  spoke  gloriously  ;  and  his  presence  was,  in  a 
great  degree,  an  inspiration  to  the  rest.  Add  to  that.  Garrison 
in  tears — the  occasion — and  the  company  scarred  with  many  a 
struggle — and  you  will  easily  see  that  we  should  feel  deeply, 
and,  like  all  times  of  deep  feeling,  it  should  be  mingled  of  mirth 
and  profound  emotion.  Such  hours  come  rarely  in  life."  1 

From  Mr.  Phillips's  own  speech,  which  was  largely 
in  a  sportive  vein,  we  subjoin  a  serious  sentence  or 
two,  as  significant  of  his  appreciation  of  the  Liberator 
and  of  its  editor  : 

"How  many  owe  their  reform  alphabet  to  the  Liberator ! 
John  Foster  used  to  say,  that  the  best  test  of  a  book's  value  was 
the  mood  of  mind  in  which  one  rose  from  it.  To  this  trial  I 
am  always  willing  the  most  eager  foe  should  subject  the  Liber 
ator.  I  appeal  to  each  one  here,  whether  he  ever  leaves  its  col 
umns  without  feeling  his  coldness  rebuked,  his  selfishness  shamed, 
his  hand  strengthened  for  every  good  purpose  ;  without  feeling 
lifted,  for  a  while,  from  his  ordinary  life,  and  made  to  hold  com 
munion  with  purer  thoughts  and  loftier  aims  ;  and  without  being 
moved— the  coldest  of  us — for  a  moment,  at  least,  with  an 
ardent  wish  that  we,  too,  may  be  privileged  to  be  co.-workers 
with  God  in  the  noble  purposes  for  our  brother's  welfare  which 
have  been  unfolded  and  pressed  on  our  attention  ?  Let  critics 
who  have  time  settle,  after  leisurely  analysis,  the  various  faults 
which,  as  they  think,  have  marred  our  friend's  course,  and  de 
nounce,  as  suits  them,  the  other  topics  which  he  has  chosen  to 
mingle  with  his  main  subject  ;  enough  for  us,  in  the  heat  of  our 
conflict,  to  feel  that  it  has  always  '  been  good  for  us  to  have 
been  '  with  him.  How  can  we  ever  thank  him  for  the  clear  at 
mosphere  into  which  he  has  lifted  us  !  If  of  the  Abolitionists  it 
may  be  said,  with  such  exceeding  measure  of  truth,  that  they 
have  broken  the  shackles  of  party,  thrown  down  the  walls  of 


Compare  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  Hi.,  p.  313. 


240  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

sect,  trampled  on  the  prejudices  of  their  land  and  time,  risen  to 
something  like  the  freedom  of  Christian  men,  something  of 
that  perfect  toleration  which  is  the  fruit  only  of  the  highest  intel 
lectual  and  moral  culture— how  much  is  all  this  owing  to  the  in 
fluence  of  such  a  leader  !  My  friends,  if  we  never  free  a  slave, 
we  have  at  least  freed  ourselves  in  the  effort  to  emancipate  our 
brother-man.  {Applause.}  From  the  blindness  of  American 
prejudice  the  most  cruel  the  sun  looks  on  ;  from  the  narrowness 
of  sect  ;  from  parties,  quibbling  over  words  ;  we  have  been  re 
deemed  into  full  manhood— taught  to  consecrate  life  to  some 
thing  worth  living  for.  Life  !  what  a  weariness  it  is,  with  its 
drudgery  of  education  ;  its  little  cares  of  to-day,  all  to  be  lived 
over  again  to-morrow  ;  its  rising,  eating,  and  lying  down— only 
to  continue  the  monotonous  routine  !  Let  us  thank  God  that 
He  has  inspired  any  one  to  awaken  us  from  being  these  dull  and 
rotting  weeds — revealed  to  us  the  joy  of  self-demotion — taught 
us  how  we  intensify  this  life  by  laying  it  a  willing  offering  on 
the  altar  of  some  great  cause  !"  1 

How  did  Mr.  Thompson  fare  in  America,  beyond 
the  congenial  circle  which  bade  him  welcome  ?  Mr. 
Phillips  shall  tell  us,  as  he  told  Miss  Pease,  in  a  letter 
to  that  lady,  from  which  we  once  more  quote  : 

"  His  visit  has  had  a  wonderful  effect  ;  calling  out  into  some 
thing  of  activity  some  who  were  alive  during  his  former  stay, 
but  had  fallen  off,  or  fallen  asleep,  in  the  long  and  hard  trials 
of  the  years  since  ;  and  some  who  were  awkwardly  conscious  of 
having  ratted  when  trouble  lowered,  and  longed  for  some  occa 
sion  that  would  open  the  door  for  a  return  without  imposing  too 
palpable  a  confession  of  repentance.  Then  his  name  gathers 
immense  audiences,  the  fame  of  his  former  achievements  still 
haunting  our  towns,  the  plebeians  of  the  cause  (the  converts 
since  1835)  hankering  after  the  sound  of  that  voice  whose  echoes 
had  reached  them  in  the  stirring  tales  of  the  nobles  of  earlier 
conversion.  The  rage,  too,  of  opposition  raises  him  into  an 
object  of  universal  attention. 

"  It  is  generally  voted  that  he  has  not  grown  a  day  older  since 


Compare  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iii.,  pp.  319,  320. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  241 

1835.  though  the  dissentients  are  not  few.  Then  many  scold, 
nure  laugh,  at  his  snuff  ;  hut  his  vivacity,  brilliancy,  and  variety 
of  accomplishments  in  private  life  charm  every  one  that  has  the 
good  luck  to  get  near  him.  He  is  a  universal  idol.  His  project 
of  lecturing  upon  general  topics  would,  in  my  opinion,  have 
been  a  failure  even  had  no  disturbance  intervened  to  prevent  it. 
Your  English  mode  of  lecture  is  so  totally  different  from  ours 
that,  lacking  the  impetus  of  being  abused,  he  would  have  goi 
on  but  poorly  in  his  voyage.  As  it  is,  he  has  delivered  his 
course  on  '  British  India  '  in  five  or  six  towns,  and  with  toler 
able  success,  owing  to  the  extra  exertion  of  friends,  and  the  wish 
of  many  to  hear  the  4  Great  Unheard  '  without  compromising 
their  dignity  by  being  seen  in  an  Abolition  meeting.  In  our 
Anti-Slavery  gatherings  his  speeches  have  been  grand  and  elo 
quent  beyond  all  description.  We  hope  that  his  visit  will  not 
have  been  wholly  vain  to  him  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view."  1 

Mr.  Thompson,  who  was  now  a  member  of  the 
British  Parliament,  prolonged  his  stay  on  these 
shores  until  his  constituents  began  to  murmur. 
Called  home  by  these  indications  of  English  discon 
tent,  he  sailed  from  Boston  on  June  26th,  1851,  not, 
however,  before  his  American  friends  (with  Mr. 
Phillips  among  them)  had  feted  him  at  a  farewell 
soiree  at  which  a  thousand  plates  were  laid.2 

Upon  reaching  England  he  addressed  his  constitu 
ents  in  explanation  of  his  tarry.  We  clip  a  passage 
from  his  speech,  as  a  specimen  of  his  style  : 

"  Allow  me  to  say,  that  had  I  remained  for  ease,  leisure, 
emolument,  recreation,  I  should  have  condemned  myself  before 
I  had  appeared  to  receive  your  censure.  I  was  not  botanizing 
on  the  Himalayas  ;  I  was  not  pursuing  antiquarian  researches 
on  the  banks  of  the  Nile  ;  I  was  not  gazing  upon  the  sublimities 
of  the  Alps  or  the  Andes  ;  I  was  not  putting  my  legs  under  the 
tables  of  the  bloated  planters  of  the  South,  or  truckling  politi 
cians  of  the  North,  of  America.  I  was  facing  labors,  perils,  per- 

1   Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xx.,  p.  18.  9  /<£.,  vol.  xxi.,  pp.  98,  101. 


242  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

secutions,  and  obloquy,  in  the  cause  of  the  most  oppressed  and 
degraded  of  the  human  race.   .   .   . 

"  Of  all  institutions  of  personal  slavery,  looked  at  in  connec 
tion  with  its  safeguards  and  its  origin,— of  all  the  institutions  of 
slavery  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  there  are  none  so  unmitigatedly 
bad,  so  inexcusably  atrocious,  so  colossal  in  their  felonious 
aspect,  so  diametrically  opposed  to  the  professions  and  practices 
of  the  people  that  encourage  and  support  them,  as  the  institution 
of  slavery  in  the  United  States  of  America.  There  is  no  repub 
licanism  in  America  while  slavery  exists.  The  cause  of  liberty 
throughout  the  world  is  maimed  and  bleeding  while  slavery  re 
mains  there.  We  preach  democracy  in  vain  in  England  while 
a  Tory  or  Conservative  can  point  us  to  the  opposite  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  say  :  '  There  are  nineteen  millions  of  the  human 
race,  free,  absolutely  ;  every  man  heir-apparent  to  the  throne  ; 
governing  themselves— the  government  of  all,  by  all.  for  all  ; 
but,  instead  of  being  a  consistent  republic,  it  is  one  widespread 
confederacy  of  free  men  for  the  enslavement  of  an  entire  nation 
of  another  complexion.'  While  that  institution  lasts,  the  experi 
ment  of  men  to  govern  themselves  has  not  been  proved  to  be  a 
successful  one  ;  for  there  is  no  virtue  in  loving  freedom  for  our 
selves."  l 

While  the  Englishman  was  in  this  country,  Mr. 
Phillips  was  with  him  as  much  as  possible.  The  two 
orators  spoke  together  on  slavery  at  various  places 
in  the  vicinity  of  Boston.  What  a  pair  !  What  a 
treat  !  Some  who  yet  live  remember  to  have  heard 
them  as  they  swung  around  this  circle,  and  recall  it 
as  an  experience  of  intellectual  epicureanism. 


1   Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxi.,  p.  135. 


XVII. 

DISJECTA    MEMBRA. 

AN  ominous  Pro-Slavery  invasion  of  this  country 
had  been  going  on  steadily  through  five  decades. 
For  it  began  in  the  administration  of  Jefferson,  with 
the  acquisition  of  Louisiana.  It  proceeded  in  con 
stant  encroachments,  whose  successive  mile-stones 
were  the  Missouri  Compromise,  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  the  Mexican  War,  and  now  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law.  Thus  far  the  inroads  had  been  con 
ducted  by  legislation.  The  South  was  soon  to  sub 
stitute  rifles  for  constables. 

Meantime,  under  the  latest  device  of  slavery,  the 
condition  of  the  colored  people,  even  in  the  free 
States,  was  pitiable.  They  were  without  recourse. 
The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  treason,  and 
the  Golden  Rule  was  heresy.  Senator  Sumner  esti 
mated  within  a  few  months  after  the  passage  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  that  "  as  many  as  six  thousand 
Christian  men  and  women,  meritorious  persons, — a 
larger  band  than  that  of  the  escaping  Puritans, — pre 
cipitately  fled  from  homes  which  they  had  estab 
lished,''  to  Canada.1 

In  Boston,  on  February  I5th,  1851,  Shadrach,  a 
colored  waiter  in  a  coffee-house,  was  seized  as  an 
escaped  slave.  The  court-room  whither  he  had  been 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxiv.,  p.  70. 


244  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

hurried  was  filled  with  a  crowd  of  his  own  color, 
and,  suddenly,  Shadrach  disappeared  among  them  !  ' 
Washington  went  into  convulsions. 

'  The  head  and  front  of  the  offending,'  in  this 
instance — what  is  it?"  asked  Mr.  Garrison  a  week 
later.  "  A  sudden  rush  of  a  score  or  two  of  un 
armed  friends  of  equal  liberty — an  uninjurious  de 
liverance  of  the  oppressed  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
oppressor — the  quiet  transportation  of  a  slave  out  of 
this  slavery-ruled  land  to  the  free  soil  of  Upper 
Canada  !  Nobody  injured,  nobody  wronged,  but 
simply  a  chattel  transformed  into  a  man,  and  con 
ducted  to  a  spot  whereon  he  can  glorify  God  in  his- 
body  and  spirit,  which  are  his  !"  2 

At  this  moment  the  authorities  of  the  underground 
railroad  resolved  themselves  into  a  Vigilance  Com 
mittee  for  the  purpose  of  giving  aid  and  comfort  to 
the  flying  bondmen.  Mr.  Phillips  was  a  prominent 
stockholder  in  this  corporation  of  humanity.  Writ 
ing  on  March  9th,  1851,  to  Miss  Pease,  he  gives  that 
fair  correspondent  a  graphic  description  of  the  oper 
ations  of  the  Vigilance  Committee  : 

"  In  Boston,  all  is  activity — never  before  so  much  since  I  knew 
the  cause.  The  rescue  of  Shadrach  has  set  the  whole  public 
afire.  We  have  some  hundreds  orTugitives  among  us.  The 
oldest  are  alarmed.  I  had  an  old  woman  of  seventy  ask  my  ad 
vice  about  flying,  though  originally  free  and  fearful  only  of  being 
caught  up  by  mistake.  Of  course,  in  one  so  old  and  valueless 
there  was  no  temptation  to  mistake  ;  but  in  others  it  is  horrible 
to  see  the  distress  of  families  torn  apart  at  this  inclement  season, 
and  the  working  head  forced  to  leave  good  employment,  and 
seek  not  employment  so  much  as  the  chance  of  it  in  the  narrow, 
unenterprising,  and  overstocked  market  of  Canada.  Our  Vigi 
lance  Committee  meets  every  night.  The  escapes  have  been  prov- 


1  Vide  Liberator^  vol.  xxi.,  p.  30.  2  2b, 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  245 

idential.  Since  Shadrach's  case,  nigh  a  hundred  have  left  the 
city.  The 'way  we  get  news  of  warrants  is  surprising.  One 
officer  was  boasting  to  one  of  our  members,  whom  he  did  not 
know  to  be  such,  that  now  they  had  a  fellow  in  sight,  and  he 
would  be  arrested  by  one  o'clock.  Our  friend  lounged  care 
lessly  away,  told  what  he'd  heard,  and  by  twelve  the  poor  fellow 
described  was  steaming  it  on  iron  lines  to  Canada.  Another,  at 
work  on  a  wharf,  came  out  of  his  employer's  store,  saw  his  old 
master  before  him,  heard  him  whistle,  thought  that  was  as 
much  of  such  music  as  he  cared  for,  dived  into  the  cellar,  up  the 
back  door,  and  '  has  not  been  heard  tell  of,'  as  '  Baillie  Nocol 
Jarvie  '  says,  since. 

"  There  have  been  several  as  close  escapes  as  that,  and  there 
are  still  quite  a  number  of  Southerners  here.  It  is  said  privately 
that  all  they  want  is  one  from  Boston,  to  show  the  discontented 
ones  at  home  that  it  can  be  done  ;  and  our  merchants  groan  at 
the  trade  they  lose  by  the  hatred  the  South  bears  us  because  she 
has  not  yet  brought  Boston  under.  Our  business  streets  are 
markedly  quiet.  But  we  hope  the  same  spirit  is  alive  as  laughed 
to  scorn  the  mother  country  shutting  up  our  harbor  to  starve  us 
into  compliance.  Webster,  too  (like  your  Lord  North),  the  in 
famous  New  Hampshire  renegade,  threatens  to  line  our  streets 
with  soldiers.  We've  seen  none,  opposed  to  us,  since  the  red 
coats  ;  the  Government,  which  wishes  to  succeed  to  the  hatred 
they  earned  for  their  employers,  had  better  send  us  their  suc 
cessors. 

"  I  need  not  enlarge  on  this  ;  but  the  long  evening  sessions — 
debates  about  secret  escapes — plans  to  evade  where  we  can't  re 
sist — the  door  watched  that  no  spy  may  enter — the  whispering 
consultations  of  the  morning — some  putting  property  out  of  their 
hands,  planning  to  incur  penalties,  and  planning  also  that,  in 
case  of  conviction,  the  Government  may  get  nothing  from  them 
— the  doing,  and  answering  no  questions — intimates  forbearing 
to  ask  the  knowledge  which  it  may  be  dangerous  to  have — all 
remind  one  of  those  foreign  scenes  which  have  hitherto  been 
known  to  us,  transatlantic  republicans,  only  in  books.  Yet  we 
enjoy  ourselves  richly,  and  I  doubt  whether  more  laughing  is 
done  anywhere  than  in  Anti-Slavery  parlors."  * 


Quoted  in  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iii.,  pp.  323.  324. 


246  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  next  fugitive-slave  case  in  Boston  did  not  end 
so  happily  as  had  that  of  Shadrach.  Thomas  Sims, 
a  colored  refugee,  was  arrested,  hustled  into  the 
court-house  (which  was  surrounded  by  chains)  ;  and, 
with  the  police  of  the  city  and  the  militia  of  the 
State  for  an  escort,  was  carried  thence  on  shipboard 
and  returned  to  Savannah.1 

The  better  part  of  the  community  (but  not  the 
"  respectability")  bitterly  opposed  the  atrocity. 
Bells  were  tolled  in  the  country  towns.  In  Boston, 
meeting  after  meeting  was  held,  at  which  Phillips, 
Parker,  Garrison,  and  Quincy  spoke  ;  and  there  was 
a  monster  demonstration  on  the  Common,  where  the 
orator  addressed  acres  of  excited  people,  and  invoked 
the  curse  of  the  Almighty  upon  institutions  which 
protected  tyrants  and  immolated  victims. 

New  York  City  being  at  this  time  dominated  by 
Captain  Rynders,  the  American  Anti- Slavery  Society 
was  denied  a  hall  there  in  1851  in  which  to  hold  its 
annual  May  meeting,  and  found  shelter  in  Syracuse, 
where  Gerrit  Smith,  a  Free  Soil  leader,  bade  it  wel 
come.2  The  health  of  Mrs.  Phillips  was  so  precari 
ous  that  her  husband  was  held  at  home,  and  made 
himself  notable  at  the  session  by  his  absence.  He 
was  able,  however,  to  slip  down  to  Worcester,  on 
August  ist,  to  take  part  in  the  celebration,  in  that 

1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxii.,   p.  62.      "  Sims  was  severely  whipped 
after  arriving  at  Savannah,  and  for  two  months  was  kept  closely  con 
fined  in  a  cell.      He  was  then  sent  to  a  slave-pen  in  Charleston,  and 
thence  to  a  slave-pen  at  New  Orleans.     He  was  purchased  by  a  brick 
mason,  and  taken  to    Vicksburg,  whence,  in    1863,  he  escaped  to  the 
besieging  army  of  General  Grant,  who  gave  him  transportation  to  the 
North."     Austin's   "Life  and  Times  of  Wendell   Phillips,"  p.  141, 
note. 

2  Ib.,  vol.  xxi.,  p.  8 1. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  247 

town,  of  West  Indian  emancipation.  His  speech  was 
the  feature  of  the  day,  and  was  devoted  to  a  keen 
analysts  of  the  condition  of  affairs  in  America.1 

In  October  the  second  National  Women's  Rights 
Convention  met,  also  in  Worcester.  Those  who 
had  attended  it  the  previous  year  were  present  in 
1851.  Mr.  Phillips  there  delivered  the  most  elabo 
rate  and  best-known  of  all  his  speeches  on  this  theme. 
He  sounded  the  depths  and  fixed  the  latitude  and 
longitude  of  the  reform  with  an  accuracy  which 
left  no  need  for  amendment.  This  was  the  powerful 
presentation  of  which  George  William  Curtis  has 
said  :  "In  the  general  statement  of  principle  nothing 
has  been  added  to  it ;  in  vivid  and  effective  elo 
quence  of  advocacy  it  has  never  been  surpassed. 
All  the  arguments  for  independence  echoed  John 
Adams  in  the  Continental  Congress.  All  the  pleas 
for  applying  the  American  principle  of  representa 
tion  to  the  wives  and  mothers  of  American  citizens 
echo  the  eloquence  of  Wendell  Phillips  at  Worces 
ter."2  Happily,  the x  address  was  harvested,  and  is 
easily  accessible  in  the  collected  speeches  of  the 
orator.  Those  who  would  study  this  masterpiece 
are  referred  to  it  there.* 

When  Mr.  Phillips  met  Theodote^Parker,  after  re 
turning  from  the  Women's  Rights  Convention,  the 
clergyman  said  to  him  : 

'  Wendell, ~wHy  do  you  make  a  fool  of  yourself  ?" 
'  Theodore,"  was  the  reply,  "  this  is  the  greatest 
question  ot  the  ages  ;  you  ought  to  understand  it." 

1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxii.,  p   130,  for  a  full  report. 

2  "Wendell    Phillips.     A    Eulogy,"    by   George    William    Curtis, 
P-  32. 

3  l\Je  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  by  Wendell  Phillips,  pp.  11-34. 


248  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

Before  the  year  had  passed  Parker  had  espoused 
the  cause,  and  he  preached  four  sermons  upon  it  in 
warm  advocacy  of  the  whole  claim.1 

In  December,  1851,  Louis  Kossuth  came  to  Ameri 
ca,  seeking-  the  intervention  of  the  United  States  in 
behalf  of  Hungary,  torn  and  bleeding  in  the  talons 
of  the  Austrian  eagle.  This  remarkable  man  had 
mastered  the  English  language  so  completely  that 
he  could  say  with  "  Hamlet  :" 

—  I  am  a  native  here, 
And  to  the  manner  born." 

Unfortunately,  he  had  also  acquired  something  else 
American — the  national  habit  of  ignoring  slavery, 
and  eulogizing  our  eagle  as  though  it  were  not  as 
cruel  as  the  Hapsburg  bird  of  prey.  Slave-holders 
•  invited  him  here;  slave-holders  entertained  him 
while  he  remained  ;  and  slave-holders  profited  by 
his  silence  regarding  their  sin  and  by  his  laudations 
of  their  government. 

This  was  a  bitter  mortification  to  the  Abolitionists. 
They  were  among  his  most  ardent  admirers.  ^They 
deeply  sympathized  with  his  poor  country.  But  as 
they  watched  his  triumphal  course,  and  saw  him  de 
liberately  sacrifice  the  negro  to  aid  the  Hungarian, 
their  indignation  flamed.  At  the  Anti-Slavery 
Bazaar,2  in  Boston,  on  December  2/th,  1851,  Wendell 
Phillips  rebuked  the  illustrious  Magyar  in  a  Mont 
Blanc  utterance,  down  whose  side  he  shook  loose 


1  Mrs.  Lucy  Stone  is  the  authority  for  this  story. 

2  An   Anti-Slavery    bazaar   was    annually    held    in    Boston   almost 
throughout  the  struggle  against  slavery  ;  at  which  articles  contributed 
at  home  and  abroad  were  offered  for  sale  for  the  benefit  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  treasury  ;  and  at  which  Mr.  Phillips  and  others  were  wont  to 
make  addresses. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  249 

avalanche  after  avalanche  of  condemnation.  He  told 
who  Kossuth  was — a  fugitive  from  Austrian  law  ;  he 
described  this  country,  madly  sensitive  to  foreign 
criticism,  and  hanging-  breathlessly  upon  the  great 
fugitive's  lips  to  catch  what  he  should  say  ;  he  showed 
that  Kossuth  had  been  informed  of  the  condition  of 
the  American  struggle  before  he  left  the  old  world, 
so  that  he  could  not  plead  ignorance  of  the  atrocities 
enacted  here  ;  he  quoted  the  unstinted  eulogies  pro 
nounced  by  the  nation's  guest  upon  our  institutions, 
with  never  a  whispered  exception  of  anything  objec 
tionable  ;  he  contrasted  this  selfish  patriotism  of  the 
Magyar,  which  consented  to  help  Hungary  at  the 
expense  of  one  sixth  part  of  the  population  of  Ameri 
ca,  meeted  and  peeled  under  iron  heels  which  made 
Austria's  seem  merciful  in  comparison, — with  the 
broad  humanity  of  O'Connell,  of  Victor  Hugo,  of 
Lafayette,  pleading  not  for  one  race  but  for  all  ;  he 
disclaimed  the  expectation  that  the  visitor  would 
take  a  pronounced  Anti-Slavery  stand,  but  asserted 
that  he  might  justly  be  called  upon  to  guard  his 
words  and  withhold  such  wholesale  laudation  ;  and 
ended  by  quoting  the  words  of  Fletcher  of  Saltoun  : 
11  I  would  do  much  to  help  my  country,  but  I  would 
not  do  a  wicked  thing  to  save  her  !"  l 

The  speech  was  made  in  Mr.  Phillips's  loftiest 
vein.  It  makes  one's  blood  »tingle  even  to  read  it. 
And  it  was  prodigiously  effective.  In  the  delivery, 
the  orator  broke  through  his  usual  repose  of  manner. 
He  seemed  to  feel  the  paradox  involved  in  such  a 
challenge  of  one  reformer  by  another.  He  was  de- 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxii.,  p.  3,  for  a  full  report  of  this  speech,  not 
elsewhere  accessible. 


250  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

clamatory  beyond  precedent.  It  was  like  one  of 
Wagner's  tenor  robustos  in  "  Lohengrin,"  singing 
with  a  full  brass  band  accompaniment. 

Kossuth's  mission  was  a  failure — and  deserved  to 
be.  He  asked  the  United  States  to  do,  what  he  dis 
tinctly  refused  to  do — interfere  in  the  domestic  affairs 
of  a  foreign  country.  After  parading  as  a  nine  days' 
wonder,  he  crept  back  to  Europe  to  bury  himself 
alive  in  chagrin,  leaving  behind  him  here  only  the 
memory  of  his  marvellous  oratory. 


XVIII. 

GOOD   WORKS. 

IN  Boston,  as  in  all  large  cities,  there  are  many 
girls  half  or  two  thirds  grown,  women  in  their  pas 
sions,  children  in  their  knowledge  and  self-control, 
afloat  on  the  streets,  whom  idleness  and  vagrant 
habits  expose  to  devilish  temptations.  The}7  are  in 
danger  of  becoming  rotten  before  they  are  ripe. 
Mr.  Phillips  always  interested  himself  in  this  class. 
With  Theodore  Parker,  he  assisted  early  in  1852  in 
the  formation  of  a  moral  reform  society  for  the  res 
cue  of  such  as  had  gone  astray  and  for  the  protection 
of  those  as  yet  unf alien.  The  object  of  the  organi 
zation  was  twofold  :  to  instruct  these  waifs  in  the 
means  of  earning  an  honest  livelihood,  and  then  to 
remove  them  into  a  more  wholesome  environment 
beyond  the  town.  One  of  Mr.  Phillips's  closest 
friends,  the  Rev.  John  T.  Sargent,  a  gentleman  of 
wealth  and  social  prominence,  a  noble  spirit,  ac 
cepted  the  agency  of  the  society,  while  Phillips 
and  Parker  were  Aaron  and  Hur  to  hold  up  his 
hands.1 

The  anniversary  of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery 
Society  always  occurred  in  January.  On  the  28th 
of  that  month,  Mr.  Phillips  addressed  the  Society  in 
one  of  the  ablest  of  his  speeches,  that  on  "  Public 


"  Life  of  Theodore  Parker,"  by  O.  B.  Frothingham,  p.  365. 


252  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

Opinion."  It  is  remarkable  for  its  epigrammatic 
point,  and  also  because  of  the  absolute  faith  the 
speaker  expressed  in  the  republican  principle — in  the 
competency  of  the  people,  and  in  their  ultimate  cer 
tainty  to  right  every  wrong. 

The  sessions  covered  two  days.  In  the  evening 
of  the  third  day,  the  soth,  the  Abolitionists  met 
in  Faneuil  Hall,  and  on  this  congenial  platform  the 
orator  spoke  upon  the  recent  surrender  of  Sims." 
Though  opened  by  his  friends,  the  hall  was  crowded 
by  his  foes.  The  meeting  was  stormy.  Speaker 
after  speaker  was  shouted  down.  Mr.  Phillips  him 
self  had  to  fight  for  a  hearing.  Every  mention  of 
the  exciting  occurrences  of  the  hour  was  hissed, 
every  name  he  ventured  to  censure  was  cheered. 
But  his  wit,  his  satire,  his  repartee,  so  turned  the 
laugh  upon  the  interrupters  that  at  last  they  were 
cowed  into  quietude.  He  mobbed  the  mob  !  3 

It  was  in  March,  1852,  that  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe's  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  appeared — not  so 
much  a  book  as  an  event.  Douglas  Jerrold  said, 
"  the  soil  in  Australia  was  so  fertile  that  if  you 
tackled  it  with  a  hoe  it  laughed  with  a  harvest." 
"  Uncle  Tom"  fell  upon  prepared  ground.  The 
crop  of  readers  was  wonderful — striking  proof  of  the 
success  of  the  Abolitionists  in  creating  Anti-Slavery 
sentiment.  Richard  Hildreth's  "  White  Slave,"  an 
equally  dramatic  work,  first  published  in  1835,  made 
no  sensation  because  born  out  of  due  time.  Mrs. 
Stowe's  book,  on  the  contrary,  appearing  seventeen 


1  Vide  his  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  35-55. 

*  //>.,  pp.  55-70. 

3  Vide  Higginson's  "  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  13. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  253 

years  later,  had  the  advantage  of  a  ripened  public 
conscience — wide  awake  enough  to  read  if  not  to 
act.  Twenty  thousand  copies  of  '  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"  were  sold  within  three  weeks  after  it  left  the 
press.  Eighty  thousand  copies  were  disposed  of 
within  three  months.1  Its  success  was  even  greater 
in  England.  George  Thompson  wrote  Mr.  Garri 
son,  in  the  autumn  of  1852,  from  London  : 

44  '  Uncle  Tom  '  is  doing  a  great  work  here.  Between  four 
and  five  hundred  thousand  copies  (varying  in  price  from  sixpence 
to  seven  and  sixpence)  are  already  in  circulation.  Two  of  our 
metropolitan  theatres  are  nightly  crowded  to  overflowing  by  per 
sons  anxious  to  witness  a  representation  of  its  striking  scenes  on 
the  stage.  Behold  the  fruit  of  your  labors  and  rejoice."  2 

Not  long  afterward  the  book  was  dramatized  in 
this  country.  In  Boston  and  in  New  York,  as  in 
London,  it  proved  a  gold  mine  to  the  theatres  ;  and 
slaves  shot  their  hunters  to  slow  music  and  loud 
applause. 

God  makes  "the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  Him." 
Even  the  rendition  of  a  fugitive  slave  created  Anti- 
Slavery  opinion.  Realizing  this  (though  sickened 
by  the  experience)  and  encouraged  by  the  phenom 
enal  popularity  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  novel,  the  Abolition 
ists  decided  to  observe  the  anniversary  of  Thomas 
Sim's  surrender.^  Accordingly,  on  April  I2th,  1852, 
a  great  meeting  was  held  in  Boston,  at  which  Mr. 
Phillips  pronounced  another  of  his  masterpieces3 — 
the  third  since  the  year  broke.  This  is  equal  to 
either  of  the  others  ;  not  in  brilliancy,  perhaps,  but 
in  a  certain  grave  splendor  and  sustained  majesty  of 


1  t4  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  Hi.,  p.  362. 

2  lb.t  pp.  362,  363.  3  Phillips's  "  Speeches,"  pp.   71-97. 


254  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

diction.      It  illustrates  the  variety  arid  fertility  of  his 
style. 

Mr.  Phillips  journeyed  to  Central  New  York  in 
May,  1852,  to  attend  the  annual  meeting-  of  the 
American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  which  convened  in 
Rochester.1  He  was  warmly  welcomed  and  eagerly 
listened  to.  Like  Dante,  exiled  from  Florence  and 
driven  to  Ravenna,  the  absence  of  the  Abolitionists 
from  New  York  City  made  anniversary  week  stupid 
there,  and  raised  the  interior  town  into  national 
prominence  during  the  tarry  of  the  Convention. 

The  nation  was  now  in  the  throes  of  a  Presidential 
canvass.  Three  parties  divided  the  field — the  Demo 
cratic,  the  Whig-,  and  the  Free  Soil.  When  the  votes 
were  cast  and  counted  in  November,  Franklin  Pierce 
was  chosen,  the  Whig  party  was  routed  never  to  rally 
again,  and  the  Free  Soilers  were  distanced  in  the 
race.  It  is  a  singular  fact  that,  spite  of  the  immense 
constituency  of  "  Uncle  Tom,"  the  Anti-Slavery  bal 
lots  only  numbered  one  hundred  and  fifty-six  thou 
sand  out  of  three  millions — an  actual  falling  off  since 
1848,  when  the  Free  Soil  vote  was  two  hundred  and 
ninety  thousand  !  And  what  did  the  election  of 
Franklin  Pierce  mean  ?  It  meant  the  approval  of 
the  Pro-Slavery  propaganda.  It  meant  the  dis 
avowal  of  the  Anti-Slavery  protest.  It  showed  how 
superficial  the  opposition  to  the  lords  of  the  planta 
tion  was,  and  how  complete  was  their  ascendency. 
The  despotism  of  the  Czar  in  Russia,  the  throne  of 
the  Flapsburgs  in  Austria,  the  privileges  of  the  Brit 
ish  aristocracy,  did  not  seem  as  impregnable  in  1852 
as  did  the  slave  power  in  America. 


1   Vide  Liberator,  vo!    xx!i.,  pp.  82, 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  255 

As  for  Mr.  Phillips,  the  result  of  the  election  only 
confirmed  his  views.  As  Milton  said,  "  new  pres 
byter  is  but  old  priest  writ  large,"  so  he  thought 
this  latest  and  completest  triumph  of  the  South  was 
but  a  new  demonstration  of  old  truth.  The  slave 
Union  must  be  broken.  There  was  no  hope  for  lib 
erty  while  it  intrusted  itself  to  slavery.  It  was 
"Little  Red  Riding-hood"  led  by  the  wolf.  No 
man  can  serve  two  masters — neither  can  a  country. 
What  could  be  more  unnatural  than  such  a  coalition  ? 
Freedom — coffle  gangs  ;  the  nineteenth  century — the 
twelfth  century  ;  republican  institutions — despotism  ; 
ideas— ignorance  ;  the  Golden  Rule — satanic  self 
ishness  ;  law — self-will  ;  progress — stagnation  !  And 
these  opposites  and  contradictions  existing  under  one 
government,  and  administered  by  the  worser  part  ! 
Such  a  Union— what  was  it  but  the  union  of  the 
shark  with  its  prey  ?  Therefore  he  redoubled  his 
efforts  to  dissolve  the  Union, — to  persuade  the  North 
to  withdraw  from  such  a  hopeless  partnership, — to 
win  that  section  which  furnished  the  strength  and 
paid  the  bills  to  shake  off  the  South  and  form  a  new 
Union,  like  attracting  like. 

Standing  in  isolation,  with  no  party  collar  around 
his  neck,  and  no  sectarian  padlock  on  his  lips,  he 
enjoyed  the  luxury  of  expressing  his  thought  with  un 
compromising  candor.  He  summoned  the  men  and 
measures  around  him  to  judgment.  He  criticised 
freely  and  sharply.  The  Democratic  arid  the  Whig 
parties  were  the  right  and  left  hands  of  slavery. 
The  Free  Soil  party,  like  its  predecessor,  the  Liberty 
party,  was  inefficient  because  inconsistent.  It  was 
fatally  hampered  by  the  necessary  limitations  of  a 
Pro-Slaverv  Constitution.  The  Free  Soilers  hated 


256  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

slavery,  yet  were  forced  as  politicians  to  disclaim 
any  purpose  to  interfere  with  it  where  it  already  ex 
isted.  They  wanted  freedom  throughout  the  Union, 
yet  were  obliged  to  content  themselves  with  claim 
ing  it  in  the  free  States  and  the  new  Territories. 
They  objected  to  engaging  in  a  slave  hunt,  yet  had 
to  acknowledge  that  the  return  of  fugitives  was  a 
Constitutional  duty. 

Mr.  Phillips  rejoiced  in  any  increased  Anti-Slavery 
sentiment  which  an  enlarged  political  opposition  to 
Calhounism  might  show.  He  recognized  the  good 
intentions  and  often  the  valuable  services  of  the 
chiefs  of  political  Anti-Slavery.1  At  the  same  time 
he  remorselessly  exposed  their  inconsistencies,  and 
emphasized  the  inevitable  limitations  of  their  position 
inside  of  a  slave  Union.  For  himself,  he  kept  re 
affirming  his  purpose  to  oppose  slavery  not  less  in 
the  slave  States  than  in  the  Territories.  While  it 
actually  existed  anywhere  in  America  it  possibly  ex 
isted  everywhere.  He  hated  the  system,  not  merely 
the  extension  of  it.  Did  the  Constitution  protect  it  ? 
Then  the  Constitution  must  be  revolutionized.  Was 
the  Union  its  bulwark  ?  Then  the  Union  must  be 
overthrown,  and  a  new  Union  must  be  constructed— 
a  nineteenth-century  Union — a  Christian  Union — a 
Union  of  liberty — a  Union  of  progress — a  Union  in 
which  the  Declaration  of  Independence  should  not 
be  treason,  and  in  which  the  Golden  Rule  should  not 
be  heresy — a  Union  whose  national  emblem  should 
no  longer  be  a  grand  slave  hunt,  with  the  President, 
as  the  foremost  hound  of  the  pack. 

Such  was  Mr.  Phillips's  position  throughout  these 


Vide  his  "  Speeches,"  pp.  120-48,  passim,  for  instances. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  257 

years.  Radical  ?  Yes.  Unpopular  ?  Certainly. 
But  logical,  consistent,  easily  understood.  The 
South  said  :  "  We  will  carry  our  slaves  everywhere. " 
Political  Anti-Slavery  said  :  "  You  must  not  take 
them  into  the  Territories."  Mr.  Phillips  said  :  "  You 
shall  hold  slaves  nowhere."  He  met  the  South  in  its 
own  spirit,  and  replied  to  it  with  uncompromising 
boldness.  He  liked  Southerners,  personally.  And 
politically,  he  admired  their  courage  and- directness. 
These  qualities  he  likewise  embodied,  met  frankness 
with  frankness,  and  said  "  No"  in  the  same  tone  in 
which  Calhoun  said  "  Yes." 

Of  course,  the  eloquent  Abolitionist  did  not  make 
many  converts  ;  that  is,  he  did  not  persuade  many 
to  take  his  extreme  position.  But  he  leavened  the 
whole  lump.  He  made  slavery  hateful.  He  won 
multitudes  to  start  on  the  crusade  for  freedom.  He 
prepared  the  North  to  abolish  slavery  just  as  soon 
as  it  saw  the  way  and  got  the  opportunity.  This  he 
did.  For  the  rest,  he  recognized  the  limitations  of 
his  own  position.  He  was  content  to  be  a  sower  of 
seed.  He  knew,  none  better,  that  unless  some  one 
held  up  a  high  ideal,  the  loftiest  and  most  outside 
conception  of  justice,  in  such  an  evil  age,  the  situa 
tion  would  be  hopeless.  It  was  a  part  of  his  phi 
losophy  not  to  aim  at  immediate  results, — at  carrying 
the  jury  by  a  coup  de  main  ;  but  to  educate  public 
opinion.  "  My  dear  John,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend, 
"  if  we  would  get  half  the  loaf,  \ve  must  demand  the 
whole  of  it."1  These  words  summarized  his  philoso 
phy  of  agitation.  He  looked  at  to-day  from  the 


1  Letter  to  Rev.  John  T.  Sargent  (MS.). 


258  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

vantage-ground  of  to-morrow.  lie  asked,  not  What 
is  expedient  ?  but  What  is  right  ?  He  could  afford 
to  wait.  He  knew  the  world  would  catch  up 
to  him,  sooner  or  later.  So  he  kept  ahead,  made 
moral  pioneering  his  function,  and  cried,  "  Excel 
sior." 


XIX. 

PORTRAITS. 

THE  rising  tide  of  Anti-Slavery  feeling  was  attrib 
uted,  by  those  unfriendly  to  the  Abolitionists,  to 
anybody  and  everybody  save  Mr.  Phillips  and  his 
colaborers.  They  were  reckless,  denunciatory,  un 
reasonable,  and  obstructed  the  cause  they  professed 
to  serve.  Charles  Sumner,  Mrs.  Stowe,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  were  the  real  influences  that  moved 
the  swelling  flood — such  was  the  assertion. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  on  January  2/th,  1853,  Mr.  Phillips  consid 
ered  these  statements,  which  had  just  been  ably  re 
peated  in  detail  in  one  of  the  English  journals  as  a 
criticism  upon  the  methods  of  the  reformers.  He 
went  over  the  whole  ground,  staked  out  the  boun 
daries  between  truth  and  falsehood,  and  mapped 
down  the  facts,  luminously  and  voluminously.  This 
speech  he  called  "  The  Philosophy  of  the  Abolition 
Movement."  It  is,  perhaps,  the  most  exhaustive 
of  all  his  efforts,  and  deserves  the  careful  study  of 
those  who  would  see  to  the  bottom  of  the  subject. 
Personally,  the  orator  was  the  least  vain  of  men. 
He  claimed  nothing  for  himself,  except  the  wish  and 
purpose  to  do  his  duty.  But  he  did  feel  the  slight 
to  the  veterans  who  surrounded  him,  covered  with 
honorable  scars  ;  and,  most  of  all,  the  attempt  by 

1  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  by  Wendell  Phillips,  pp.  98-153. 


2CO  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

recent   converts  still  in  the  "  awkward  squad,"  to 
court-martial  Mr.  Garrison.     Said  he  : 

"We  are  perfectly  willing — I  am,  for  one — to  be  the  dead 
lumber  that  shall  make  a  path  for  these  men  into  the  honor  of 
the  country.  Use  us,  freely,  in  any  way,  for  the  slave.  When 
the  temple  is  finished  the  tools  will  not  complain  that  they  are 
thrown  aside,  let  who  will  lead  up  the  nation  to  '  put  on  the  top- 
stone  with  shoutings.'  But  while  so  much  remains  to  be  done, 
while  our  little  camp  is  beleaguered  all  about,  do  nothing  to 
weaken  his  influence,  whose  sagacity,  more  than  any  other  single 
man's,  has  led  us  up  hither,  and  whose  name  is  identified  with 
that  movement  which  the  North  still  heeds,  and  the  South  still 
fears  the  most."  J 

As  one  result  of  this  vindication,  Mr.  Phillips  be 
came  involved  in  a  prolonged  controversy  with  Hor 
ace  Mann,  then  a  Free  Soil  member  of  Congress 
from  Massachusetts.  This  gentleman  was  a  promi 
nent  driller  in  the  "awkward  squad,"  and,  with  a 
brand  new  uniform  on,  set  up  for  a  veteran.  He  was 
a  sharp  fighter  on  paper,  and  with  his  pen  for  a 
sword  was  a  formidable  foe.  The  combat  was  fierce 
and  angry  on  his  part,  calm  and  self-possessed  on 
the  part  of  Mr.  Phillips.  It  was  fought  over  the 
whole  field  of  difference  between  the  Free  Soilers 
and  the  Abolitionists.  It  were  needless  at  this  late 
day  to  detail  the  respective  thrusts  and  parries. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  it  ended  much  as  a  certain 
famous  duel  in  France  did,  between  Floquet  and 
Boulanger — with  Mr.  Phillips  in  the  role  of  the 
former,  and  with  Mr.  Mann  hors  de  combat^  like  the 
"  brav'  general."  * 

In  the  midst  of  this  controversy,  Mr.  Phillips  found 

1  Phillips's  "Speeches,"  p.  138. 

9  For  the  ipsissima  vcrba  vide  Liberator^  vol.  xxiii.,  pp.  42,  46,  54, 
58,  66,  70. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  26l 

time  to  address  a  Committee  of  the  Constitutional 
Convention  of  Massachusetts,  then  in  session,  in  ad 
vocacy  of  a  numerously-signed  petition  of  the  w/>men 
of  the  State  asking-  for  equal  political  rights  with 
men.  The  Convention  heas^-ifre  orator,  and  then 
threw  the  petition  into  the  waste-basket.1  It  was  too 
far  ahead/  There  was  soft  solder  enough  among 
those  tinkers  in  the  Convention — but  they  applied  it 
to  the  women  with  their  tongues  and  worked  away 
at  the  Constitution  with  a  calking-iron. 

The  month  of  May,  1853,  found  Mr.  Phillips  in 
New  York  City,  whither  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society  had  returned  for  its  anniversary  after  its 
exile  of  two  years.  Baron  Munchausen  tells  a  story 
of  a  musician  who,  playing  a  tune  in  Russia,  had  it 
frozen,  and  who,  being  in  Italy  the  following  sum 
mer,  was  surprised  to  hear  the  balance  of  the  tune 
come  pealing  forth — thawed  out  in  that  mild  climate. 
So  the  orator  resumed  his  speech  at  the  point  where 
Captain  Rynders  had  stopped  it,  and  poured  it  out 
triumphantly.  In  the  course  of  his  remarks,  he  re 
ferred  to  the  offer  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Orville  Dewey, 
an  eminent  Unitarian  clergyman,  to  return  (or  as  he 
afterward  amended  it,  to  consent  to  the  return  of)  his 
mother  into  slavery  if  that  were  necessary  to  save 
the  Union.  Thereupon  a  hurricane  of  cheers  and 
hisses,  long-continued,  broke  forth.  He  paused 
blandly,  and  when  the  storm  had  subsided,  said 
quietly  :  "  For  once  I  have  the  whole  audience  with 
me  ;  some  of  you  are  applauding  me,  and  the  rest 
are  hissing  Dr.  Dewey  !"  This  sally  was  followed 
by  great  laughter  and  loud  cheers — no  hisses  !  * 

1  Austin's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  159. 
z  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxiii.,  last  week  in  May. 


262  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  Woman  Suffragists,  who  were  in  session  at 
the  same  time,  were  not  so  fortunate  as  the  Aboli 
tionists.  Their  Convention  was  transformed  into  a 
Bedlam,  — their  speakers  derided, — their  proceed 
ings  parodied,  — theif^c-^/iest  made  a  jest.  Wendell 
Phillips  spoke  on  their  platform  ;  but  against  a  tem 
pest  and  in  interjections.1 

In  an  address  which  he  delivered  in  Boston,  two 
weeks  later,  he  gave  a  fine  definition  of  the  respec 
tive  functions  of  the  reformer  and  the  politician.  It 
is  worth  noting  : 

"  The  reformer  is  careless  of  numbers,  disregards  popularity, 
and  deals  only  with  ideas,  conscience,  and  common-sense.  He 
feels,  with  Copernicus,  that  as  God  waited  long  for  an  inter 
preter,  so  he  can  wait  for  his  followers.  He  neither  expects  nor 
is  over-anxious  for  immediate  success.  The  politician  dwells 
in  an  everlasting  Now.  His  motto  is  '  Success  ' — his  aim,  votes. 
His  object  is  not  absolute  right,  but,  like  Solon's  laws,  as  much 
right  as  the  people  will  sanction.  His  office  is,  not  to  instruct 
public  opinion,  but  to  represent  it.  Thus,  in  England,  Cobden, 
the  reformer,  created  sentiment,  and  Peel,  the  politician,  stereo 
typed  it  into  statutes."  2 

It  was  in  '1833,  and  in  Philadelphia,  that  the  Amer 
ican  Anti-Slavery  Society  was  organized.3  It  was 
now  1853 — and  the  Abolitionists  determined  to  cele 
brate  the  twentieth  anniversary.  Accordingly,  they 
sped  from  all  directions  Quaker-Cityward  and  jubi 
lated,  with  the  pioneers  to  tell  the  story  of  yesterday, 
and  with  Phillips  to  speak  for  to-day.4  '  In  the 
matter  of  voting,"  remarked  Mr.  Phillips,  "  I  will 
be  Mordecai  at  the  gate."  In  another  year  the  so- 


1  Austin's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  pp.  148-51. 

2  Vule  Liberator^  vol.  xxiii.,  p.  97. 

3  Ante,  p.   71.  4  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxiii.,  p.  192. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  263 

ciety  would  be  twenty-one — old  enough  to  vote  ! 
Phillips  might  get  up  and  cast  a  ballot.  But  he 
never  did,  until  he  rose  to  see  Haman  hung  ! 

In  those  times  of  excitement,  the  Anti-Slavery 
Convention,  naturally  enough,  attracted  cranks,  as 
a  magnet  draws  iron  filings.  A  character  of  this 
sort  was  a  certain  Abigail  Folsom.  She  was  a  harm 
less  soul,  sane  on  most  subjects,  but  a  monomaniac 
regarding  free  speech — which  she  esteemed  a  right 
on  her  part  to  silence  everybody  else  in  order  to 
have  her  say  in  season  and  out  of  season.  Emerson 
wittily  nicknamed  her  "  the  flea  of  conventions." 
She  was  often  removed  from  the  halls  she  infected 
and  afflicted  by  gentle  force.  As  she  was  a  non-re 
sistant,  she  never  struck  back,  save  with  her  tongue, 
which  was  keen  enough.  One  day,  Mr.  Phillips, 
with  two  others,  placed  her  in  a  chair  and  were 
carrying  her  down  the  aisle  through  a  crowd,  when 
she  exclaimed  : 

"  I'm  better  off  than  my  Master  was  ;  He  had  but 
one  ass  to  ride — I  have  three  to  carry  me  !" 

Abigail  Folsom  was  with,  not  of,  the  Abolitionists. 
Oddities,  however,  abounded  among  them — men  and 
women  of  the  most  original  type.  Individualism 
ran  mad.  There,  for  example,  was  Parker  Pills- 
bury,  who  started  for  the  pulpit,  and  brought  up  on 
the  platform  ;  who  set  out  orthodox,  and  ended  in 
unbelief  ;  who  had  broad  shoulders  surmounted  by 
an  enormous  head  ;  who  carried  "  a  crater  in  each 
eye,"  and  rumbled  like  a  human  y£tna. 

By  his  side  stood  a  couple  yet  more  unique — 
Stephen  S.  Foster  and  Abby  Kelley,  his  wife.  She, 


1  "  Garrison  and  his  Times,"  p.  304. 


264  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

a  "Judith  turned  Quakeress," — he,  a  non-resistant 
in  profession  and  a  gladiator  in  practice,  who  smote 
his  opponents  with  the  olive  branch  ;  she,  courage 
ous  with  the  bravery  of  an  indomitable  purpose,  — he, 
brave,  too,  but,  like  the  Irishman  at  "  Donnybrook 
Fair,"  carrying  a  chip  on  his  shoulder  which  he 
dared  any  one  to  knock  off,  and  inviting  a  row  ;  she, 
charged  with  the  collection  of  the  Abolition  revenues, 
—he,  by  his  pugnacious  utterances,  angering  the  half- 
friends  who  might  have  given  into  the  wish  to  knock 
him  down  rather  than  contribute.  Lowell,  who 
knew  and  coworked  with  both,  has  portrayed  them 
with  exquisite  fidelity.  Of  Abby  he  says  : 

"  No  nobler  gift  of  heart  or  brain, 
No  life  more  white  from  spot  or  stain, 
Was  e'er  on  Freedom's  altar  laid 
Than  hers — the  Simple  Quaker  maid." 

Mr.  Foster  he  hits  off  with  rare  humor  : 

"  Hard  by,  as  calm  as  summer  even, 
Smiles  the  reviled  and  pelted  Stephen  ; 
Who  studied  mineralogy 
Not  with  soft  book  upon  the  knee, 
But  learned  the  properties  of  stones 
By  contact  sharp  of  flesh  and  bones, 
And  made  the  experimentum  cruets 
With  his  own  body's  vital  juices  ; 
A  kind  of  maddened  John  the  Baptist, 
To  whom  the  harshest  word  comes  aptest, 
Who,  struck  by  stone  or  brick  ill-starred, 
Hurls  back  an  epithet  as  hard, 
Which,  deadlier  than  stone  or  brick, 
Has  a  propensity  to  stick." 

It  was  remarked  of  a  well-known  Baptist  clergy 
man,  of  a  controversial  temper,  that  he  baptized  his 
converts  in  hot  water.  So  did  many  of  the  Garriso- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  26$ 

nians.  As  the  chronic  invalid,  when  asked  how  he 
was,  always  said  "  he  enjoyed  poor  health,"  so  they 
seemed,  some  of  them,  to  enjoy  their  unpopularity, 
and  to  court  it. 

There  were  those  among  the  Garrisonians,  too, 
who  had  adopted  every  ism  of  the  day.  These  they 
sifted  into  their  Anti-Slavery  utterances,  and  thus 
produced  the  impression  that  Abolitionism  was  the 
nucleus  of  every  scatter-brain  theory  and  Utopian 
enterprise.  Mr.  Garrison  himself  was  a  sinner  in 
this  respect.  He  had  now  given  up  all  his  earlier 
religious  views — was  an  anti-Bible  man, — an  anti- 
Sabbatarian, — a  no-government  exponent,  as  well  as 
an  Abolitionist.  Because  he  held  and  taught  such 
doctrines,  the  community  naturally  concluded  that 
these  were  a  normal  part  of  Abolitionism — all  the 
more  because  he  mixed  them.  Of  course,  Mr.  Gar 
rison  had  a  right  to  his  opinions.  But  it  was  not 
good  generalship  to  load  down  a  cause  already  suffi 
ciently  odious  by  identifying  it  with  other  and  unre 
lated  issues  which  were  yet  more  unpopular.  "  One 
war  at  a  time,"  as  Lincoln  said.  He  should  have 
emphatically  distinguished  between  what  was  Aboli 
tionism  and  what  was  not,  in  expressing  his  convic 
tions,  and  should  have  made  the  line  of  demarkation 
broad  as  Boston  Bay,  high  as  Bunker  Hill  monu 
ment — unmistakable. 

Mr.  Phillips  did  not  share  in  the  vagaries  of  some 
of  his  friends.  Nevertheless,  he  fyad  to  bear  the 
odium  ;  which  he  did  uncomplainingly — too  uncom 
plainingly.  It  was  the  glory  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
platform  that  it  made  room  for  both  sexes,  all  colors, 
and  every  creed.  There  was  the  more  reason,  there 
fore,  that  each  should  define  his  own  position.  But 


266  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

the  cosmopolitan  character  of  the  Abolitionists  was 
magnificent  and  sensible.  If  a  general  should  call 
for  volunteers  to  go  into  a  forlorn  hope,  as  one  and 
another  slipped  out  from  the  ranks,  it  would  not 
occur  to  him  to  inquire  into  the  religious  ideas  of 
this,  and  the  home  relations  of  that,  and  the  financial 
condition  of  the  other.  In  building  railroads  or  or 
ganizing  banks,  Episcopalians,  Baptists,  Quakers, 
Presbyterians,  Congregationalists,  Roman  Catholics, 
and  atheists  combine.  They  surrender  nothing  of 
their  individual  belief  in  doing  so.  They  come 
together  for  a  specific  cause,  and,  reserving  their 
separate  interests  for  other  hours,  unite  for  the  pros 
ecution  of  the  common  purpose.  Precisely  so  with 
the  Abolitionists.  Members  of  all  sects  and  of  none 
might  consistently  join  in  a  movement  against  slav 
ery.  As  soon,  however,  as  a  sifting  in  of  outside 
opinions  began,  there  was  a  necessity  laid  upon 
everybody  to  protest  and  define  ;  while  the  result 
enabled  the  Pro-Slavery  spectators  to  identify  Anti- 
Slavery  with  Bedlam.  We  repeat,  it  was  a  disas 
trous  error,  and  it  robbed  the  Garrisonians  of  influ 
ence  and  a  following  which  they  might  otherwise 
have  held. 

The  contrast  between  Mr.  Phillips  and  some  of  his 
confreres  was  so  striking  that  audiences  familiar  with 
them  but  which  had  never  heard  him,  were  amazed 
when  he  appeared  before  them.  His  patrician  bear 
ing,  his  unobtrusive  but  self-evident  scholarship,  his 
common-sense  uttered  in  such  gorgeous  sentences, 
—made  him  as  "  Hyperion  to  a  satyr/' 


XX. 

EXCITEMENT. 

IN  1854  Congress  passed  the  Nebraska  Bill — an 
apple  of  contention  thrown  by  the  goddess  of  dis 
cord.  In  effect,  it  repealed  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise,  which  had  dedicated  to  freedom  whatever  ter 
ritory  lay  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  and  rele 
gated  to  the  inhabitants  themselves  the  question  as 
to  whether  slavery  should  be  domesticated  in  the 
vast  lands  included  under  the  name  of  Nebraska. 
That  is  to  say,  Kansas,  Montana,  and  parts  of 
Dakota,  Wyoming,  and  Colorado,  were  opened  to 
slavery,  provided  the  South  could  colonize  them. 
The  section  immediately  concerned  was  Kansas, 
which  the  slave-holders  had  already  entered  in  great 
numbers,  and  which  might  soon  be  expected  to  be 
come  a  State.  The  other  sections  were,  as  yet,  un 
populated,  but  were  certain  to  be  arenas  of  strife  as 
last  as  they  were  reached.  The  Compromise  meas 
ures  of  1850  had  foreshadowed  that  which  the  Ne 
braska  Bill  made  the  permanent  policy  and  deliber 
ate  practice  of  the  Union.  Such  was  the  doctrine 
known  as  "  Squatter  Sovereignty." 

To  say  that  it  revived  and  intensified  sectional 
rivalry,  is  like  speaking  of  the  Civil  War  as  an  "  un 
pleasantness."  The  country  was  aflame.  A  stupen 
dous  race  into  Kansas  began  in  the  South,  and  from 
the  North,  and  Kansas  itself  was  straightway  trans- 


268  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

formed    into    a    bloody    battleground— the    opening 
skirmish  of  the  impending  revolution. 

With  a  host  of  others,  Mr.  Phillips  exerted  himself 
to  expose  and  defeat  the  Nebraska  Bill ;  and  when  it 
passed,  he  redoubled  his  efforts  with  voice  and  purse 
to  hasten  Northern  immigration  to  Kansas  in  order 
to  secure  it  for  freedom.  He  no  longer  stood  alone. 
His  views  of  the  Union, — of  its  Pro-Slavery  char 
acter  and  tendency,  were  widely  adopted, — and  his 
remedy  was  more  and  more  seriously  considered. 
In  February,  1854,  he  visited  New  York  City  and 
spoke  in  the  Broadway  Tabernacle  on  "  Squatter 
Sovereignty,"  and  in  doing  so  treated  the  whole 
question  of  slavery.  "  Straws  show  which  way  the 
wind  blows."  That  it  was  now  blowing  North  is 
shown  by  the  following  notice  of  his  lecture,  taken 
from  the  conservative  Evening  Post  : 

"The  distinguished  orator  of  Abolitionism,  Mr.  Wendell 
Phillips,  held  forth  on  his  favorite  topic  on  Tuesday  evening  to 
an  audience  which  completely  crowded  the  Tabernacle,  and  it 
must  be  admitted  that  in  all  respects  a  more  desirable  audience 
could  not  have  been  selected  from  the  population  of  the  city.  It 
marks  a  great  change  in  the  public  sentiment,  when  a  gathering 
like  that  of  Tuesday  night  can  sit  for  two  hours  and  a  quarter 
and  listen,  not  merely  with  patience,  but  with  manifest  delight 
to  a  presentation  of  unadulterated  Abolitionism.  Mr.  Phillips 
is  certainly  an  orator  of  the  highest  order.  In  addition  to  rhe 
torical  accomplishments  that  outrival  (hose  of  Mr.  Everett,  he 
exhibics  a  sincerity  and  naturalness  which  his  compeer  is  obliged 
to  counterfeit.  The  lecture  was  a  felicitous  recast  of  Mr.  Phil- 
lips's  familiar  views  ;  but  the  untiring  enthusiasm  and  graceful 
eloquence  of  the  speaker  constantly  evoked  expressions  of  ap 
proval  from  the  listeners." 

We  know  now,  what  men  only  surmised  then,  that 
the  Southern  leaders  were  confederated  to  rule  or 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  269 

ruin.  They  were  ruling  at  present.  They  were 
also  deliberately  preparing  to  ruin  on  the  first  evi 
dence  that  the  sceptre  would  depart  from  Judah. 
Meantime  they  omitted  no  opportunity  to  exasperate 
Northern  sentiment.  The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  Avas 
enforced  with  special  and  diabolical  thoroughness, 
as  a  master  measure  of  provocation. 

The  Anthpny  Burns.  £ase  occurred  in  May,  1854. 
Burns  had  escaped  from  Richmond,  Va.,  in  the  pre 
ceding  February,  and  was  now  hiding  in  Boston. 
At  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  he  was  arrested,  on 
a  false  charge,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  hurried  to  the 
court-house  and  concealed — no  one  being  admitted 
to  see  him  but  the  slave-claimant,  the  United  States 
Marshal,  and  the  police.1  The  next  morning,  the 
fugitive,  ignorant,  confused,  trembling,  friendless, 
was  hustled  before  the  United  States  Commissioner, 
Edward  G.  Loring,  who  was  also  a  Massachusetts 
Judge  of  Probate.  This  heartless  judge  was  about 
to  deliver  him  to  his  master  (not  God,  but  one  Col 
onel  Seattle),  when  by  accident  Richard  H.  Dana, 
Jr.,  entered  the  court-room.  Grasping  the  situa 
tion,  he  rose,  protested  against  the  indecent  haste, 
and  secured  an  adjournment  of  the  hearing  for  two 
days.8 

It  was  anniversary  week  in  Boston.  The  city  was 
full  of  strangers  in  attendance  upon  the  Anti  Slavery, 
the  Women's  Rights,  and  other  conventions.  The 
news  circulated  like  wild-fire.  "  Since  the  Revolu 
tion,"  wrote  Mr.  Garrison  in  the  Liberator  of  that 
week,  "  Boston  has  never  witnessed  such  a  popular 
excitement, — the  commonwealth  has  never  been  so 


Phillips's  "  Speeches,"  p.  185.  "  /<£.,  pp    186-92. 


2/0  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

convulsed."  Faneuil  Hall  was  flung  open  and 
thronged.  Phillips  and  Parker  were  the  orators, 
and  their  words  were  thunderbolts.  "  I  do  not  be 
lieve  in  Squatter  Sovereignty  in  Kansas,"  declared 
the  former,  "  and  I  hold  Kidnapper  Sovereignty  to 
be  more  infamous  in  the  streets  of  Boston."  2  He 
went  on  to  quote  the  saying  of  Judge  Harrington, 
of  Vermont,  away  back  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
century,  who,  when  asked  to  return  a  runaway 
slave,  refused  on  the  ground  of  insufficient  evidence. 
'  What  would  you  regard  as  sufficient?"  asked  the 
claimant.  "  Nothing  short  of  a  bill  of  sale  from 
Almighty  God  !"  was  the  reply.3 

While  the  "  Cradle  of  Liberty"  was  being  rocked, 
an  effort  was  simultaneously  made  by  an  excited 
crowd  to  rescue  Burns,  but  failed  through  a  mis 
understanding  and  the  lack  of  concert.  Parker  knew 
of  it— Phillips  did  not.4 

In  the  meanwhile  President  Pierce  and  the  Mayor 
of  Boston  concentrated  all  the  military  and  civic 
powers  within  reach  to  overawe  the  New  England 
capital — just  as  Lord  North  had  done  two  gener 
ations  before  ;  Commissioner  Loring  delivered  the 
unhappy  black  to  his  alleged  owner  ;  and  an  army 
carried  him  down  State  Street,  over  the  very  ground 
where  Crispus  Attucks,  a  colored  man,  fell  as  the 
first  victim  of  British  tyranny  in  resisting  the  red 
coats  ;  and  Burns  was  flung  manacled  into  the  hold 
of  a  vessel  bound  for  Virginia, — the  latest,  and, 
thank  God  !  the  last  victim  in  Boston  of  American 
law.5 


1   Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxiii.,  p.  86  8  Ib. 

4  Higginson's  "  Obituary  Notice  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  9. 
6  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xciii..  p.  91. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2/1 

The  Liberator  painted  the  scene  and  called  atten 
tion  to  the  fact  that  the  whole  city  hissed  and  jeered 
the  infamous  procession — the  most  conservative, 
even  ;  a  great  change  in  public  opinion  since  the 
Sims  case.1  There  was  not  yet  enough  Anti-Slavery 
feeling  to  prevent  the  rendition  ;  but  the  Abolition 
ists  had  been  successful  in  making  it  despicable. 
Further  proof  of  this  was  given  when  Wendell  Phil 
lips,  who  had  been  absent  from  the  sessions  looking 
after  Burns,  came  into  the  Anti-Slavery  Convention 
on  the  night  of  May  3Oth,  and  was  received  with 
tumultuous  cheers,  which  were  repeated  again  and 
again  after  he  had  spoken  in  the  strains  of  his  Faneuil 
Hall  address.2 

The  Abolitionists  were  in  the  habit  of  celebrating 
the  Fourth  of  July  in  a  lovely  grove,  at  Framing- 
ham,  just  out  of  Boston.  At  their  gathering  this 
year,  Mr.  Phillips  related  an  incid'ent  in  connection 
with  the  Burns  case,  which  shows  how  much  more 
strongly  some  men  are  influenced  by  sectarian  than 
by  humanitarian  motives  : 

"  I  met  a  man  a  week  after  Burns  was  surrendered,  and  he 
asked  me  :  '  Mr.  Phillips,  was  Burns  really  a  Baptist  exhorter, 
regularly  licensed  ?  '  Said  I  :  '  He  was,  sir,  a  Baptist  exhorter, 
regularly  licensed.'  '  Well,'  said  he,  '  I  didn't  take  much  inter 
est  in  the  case  :  but  when  I  heard  that  Major-General  Edmunds 
had  sent  back  a  brother  Baptist,  I  couldn't  sleep  !  '  He  took  no 
interest  in  the  man — it  was  the  Baptist.  He  heard  the  mere 
fact  of  a  human  being  surrendered  as  a  chattel — and  went  about 
his  business.  But  when  he  learned  that  one  Baptist  had  surren 
dered  another  Baptist, — //  disturbed  his  slumber  /"  3 

The  Phillipses  passed  that  summer  in  Milton  : 
"  One  of  the  most  delightful  of  our  country  towns 

1   Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxiii.,  p.  91.  2  /£.,  p.  94.  3  Ib. 


2/2  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

(wrote  the  orator,  on  August  /th,  to  Miss  Pease). 
Ann's  brother  has  a  place  here,  and  we  are  with 
him."1  He  goes  on  to  open  his  heart  to  his  lair 
sympathizer  : 

"  I  would  say  something  on  the  Burns  case  if  I  did  not  know 
you  saw  the  Standard  and  Liberator,  from  whose  columns  you 
get  so  many  particulars  that  a  note  like  this  can  add  little. 
'Twas  the  saddest  week  1  ever  passed.  Men  talked  of  the  good 
we  might  expect  for  the  cause,  but  I  could  not  think  then  of  the 
general  cause,  so  mournful  and  sad  arose  ever  before  me  the 
pleading  eyes  of  the  poor  victim,  when  he  sat  and  cast  his  case 
on  our  consciences,  and  placed  his  fate  in  our  hands.  I  could 
not  forget  the  man  in  the  idea,  Time  has  passed  since,  and  I 
begin  to  think  more  of  the  three  millions  and  less  of  the  indi 
vidual.  The  effect  of  his  surrender  under  this  infamous  law  has 
been,  like  '  Uncle  Tom  '  and  all  such  spasms,  far  less  deep  and 
general  than  thoughtless  folks  anticipated.  We  always  gain  at 
such  times  a  few  hundred  and  the  old  friends  are  strengthened, 
but  the  mass  settle  down  very  little  different  from  before. 

"  Indeed,  the  Government  has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the 
slave  power  completely.  So  far  as  national  politics  are  con 
cerned,  we  are  beaten — there's  no  hope.  We  shall  have  Cuba 
in  a  year  or  two,  Mexico  in  five  ;  and  I  should  not  wonder  if 
efforts  are  made  to  revive  the  old  slave  trade,  though  perhaps 
unsuccessfully,  as  the  Northern  slave  States,  which  live  by  the 
export  of  slaves,  would  help  us  in  opposing  that.  Events  hurry 
forward  with  amazing  rapidity  :  we  live  fast  here.  The  future 
seems  to  unfold  a  vast  slave  empire  united  with  Brazil,  and 
darkening  the  whole  West.  I  hope  I  may  be  a  false  prophet,  but 
the  sky  was  never  so  dark.  Our  Union,  all  confess,  must  sever 
finally  on  this  question.  It  is  now  with  nine  tenths  only  a  ques 
tion  of  time."  * 

In  the  autumn,  after  safely  bestowing  his  wife  at 
No.  26  Essex  Street,  "  dear,  delightful,  dusty  spot," 
the  Agitator  went  off  on  a  lecturing  tour,  travelling 


"  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  p.  14. 
2  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  Hi.,  p. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2/3 

through  Central  New  York  as  far  West  as  Detroit, 
Mich.,  and  returning  by  way  of  Philadelphia.  He 
spoke  everywhere  to  enthusiastic  multitudes.1  His 
tone  may  be  caught  from  these  lines,  penned  by  one 
of  the  fathers  of  Anti-Slavery,  the  Rev.  Samuel  May, 
of  Syracuse,  and  published  in  the  Liberator  : 

"  Wendell  Phillips  delivered  to  a  crowded  audience  in  our 
Ciiy  Hall,  the  ablest  speech  I  ever  heard,  even  from  him — which 
is  equivalent  to  saying  the  ablest  I  ever  heard.  He  showed  that 
we  have  little  to  hope  from  parties,  but  much  from  the  moral 
and  religious  sentiment,  which  must  be  aroused  to  abhor  slavery, 
as  we  abhor  sheep-stealing,  piracy,  and  murder."  2 

When  he  got  home  from  this  trip,  Mr.  Phillips 
was  arrested. — History  has  much  to  say  of  the 
"  brace  of  Adamses,"  and  nothing  unworthy.  Bos 
ton,  in  theseyears,  held  another  brace,  a  brace  of 
Bens,  suggestive  of  the  first  only  by  dishonorable 
contrast, — Benjamin  R.  Curtis,  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  and  Benjamin  F.  Hallett,  United 
States  District-Attorney.  The  two  Bens  were  will 
ing  (for  a  consideration)  to  figure  as  legal  hounds  in 
the  national  slave  hunt.  Accordingly,  they  indicted 
Wendell  Phillips  and  Theodore  Parker  for  "  ob 
structing  the  process  of  the  United  States,"  meaning 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  It  is  not  probable  that 
they  expected  to  accomplish  much  as  against  the  de 
fendants.  They  only  wished  to  impress  the  Admin 
istration  with  a  due  sense  of  their  official  activity, 
and  to  secure  preferment  by  licking  the  hand  that 
could  bestow  it.  Personally,  they  put  the  indict 
ment  on  the  ground  of  patriotism — forgetful  of  Dr. 
Johnson's  apothegm  :  "  Patriotism  is  the  last  refuge 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxiii.,  p.  183.  2  Jb.t  vol.  xxiv.,  p.  194. 


2/4  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

of  a  scoundrel."  So  Wendell  and  Theodore  were 
each  held  in  $1500  to  answer.  They  were  not  much 
troubled  to  get  bail.  Phillips's  sureties  were  six, 
viz.,  George  William  Phillips  (his  brother),  the  Rev. 
Samuel  May,  William  I.  Bowditch,  Francis  Jack 
son,  Robert  E.  Althorp,  and  Charles  Ellis.1 
*  Parker,  in  a  letter  to  Charles  Sumner,  jots  down 
all  this,  and  adds  :  "  John  Hancock  was  also  once 
arrested  by  the  British  authorities,  in  October,  1768. 
Great  attempts  were  made  to  indict  Sam  Adams, 
and  'Edes,  and  Gill,  patriotic'printers  :  but  no  grand 
jury  then  would  find  a  bill." 

Sumner  dashed  back  from  Washington  these  lines 
in  reply  :  "  I  regard  your  indictment  as  a  call  to  a 
new  parish  with  B.  R.  Curtis  and  B.  F.  Hallett  as 
deacons,  and  a  pulpit  higher  than  Strassburg  stee 
ple."  3  At  the  same  date  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Phillips  : 

"  Well,  Wendell,  your  Faneuil  Hall  speech  anent  poor  Burns, 
and  your  treasonable  efforts  to  humanize  those  whom  the  United 
States  chattelizes,  have  at  last,  it  should  seem,  overtaxed  the 
mercy  of  a  long-suffering  Government  ;  and  Franklin  Pierce, 
by  the  worthy  proxies  of  B.  R.  C.  and  B.  F.  H.,  has  struck  back. 
You  are  indicted  !  What  a  small  mouse  for  so  big  a  mountain 
tobringforth  —  and  after  such  prolonged  travail,  too.  All  right. 
'  Everything  helps  us.'  "  4 

These  cases  never  came  to  trial.  Through  tech 
nical  defects,  the  indictments  were  quashed.5  The 
brace  of  Bens  had  shown  the  South  that  they  proudly 
wore  the  collar, — their  object  was  attained,— they 
were  now  in  the  line  of  promotion. 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxiv.,  p.  203. 

2  Weiss's  "  Life  of  Theodore  Parker,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  144.  3  Ib, 
4  Letter  to  Wendell  Phillips.  December  (MS.), 

6  Weiss's  and  Frothingham's  biographies  of   Theodore   Parker,  in 
loco. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  275 

On  December  2ist  Mr.  Phillips  lectured  in  Boston. 
Let  the  Courier,  the  most  servile  Pro-Slavery  journal 
in  Massachusetts,  describe  it  : 

"  Tremont  Temple  was  crowded  to  its  utmost  capacity  on 
Thursday  night.  Wendell  Phillips  was  the  orator  of  the  even 
ing.  His  subject  was  '  The  Nature  and  Extent  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Feeling  in  New  England,'  and  never  were  the  splendid 
abilities  of  this  most  accomplished  and  able  fanatic  more  amply 
displayed  than  on  this  occasion.  Sentiments  the  most  repug 
nant  to  the  feelings  of  every  patriot  were  absolutely  applauded 
when  clothed  in  -the  magnificent  diction  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Cicero.  No  pen  can  describe  the  gross  injustice  of  the  matter, 
nor  the  exquisite  felicity  of  the  manner  of  the  Abolition  orator." 

This  extract  suggests  Balaam,  who  set  out  to  curse 
Israel,  and  blessed  it  instead. 


XXI. 

GREAT   EVENTS. 

ANTI-SLAVERY  Massachusetts  had  now  two  objects 
at  heart.  One  was  the  removal  from  the  Probate 
Judgeship  of  Edward  G.  Loring,  who  as_  United 
States  Commissioner~~rTad  returned  Anthony  Burns 
to  Virginia.  The  other  was  the  making  suchjicts 
impossible  within  her  borders  in  future.  Petitions 
praying  for  legislative  intervention  choked  the  mails 
and  reached  the  State  House  in  vast  numbers,  with 
signatures  from  Cape  Cod  to  the  Berkshire  hills. 
Who  should  present  them  ?  Who  should  mature 
I  the  needful  action  ?  The  popular  choice  instinctively 
selected  the  fittest  man  alive — Wenddl_Phj]iips. 

It  was  a  task  quite  to  his  liking.  On  February 
20th,  1855,  he  went  before  a  designated  committee 
of  the  Legislature,  with  the  commonwealth  for  a 
client,  and  pleaded  for  the  removal  of  Judge  Loring. 
Competent  legal  critics  pronounced  his  argument 
worthy  to  rank  with  the  impeachment  speeches  of 
Burke  and  Sheridan,  when  Warren  Hastings  was 
on  trial  in  Westminster  Hall — with  the  loftiest  fo 
rensic  efforts  of  Brougham  and  Erskine.1  Rufus 
Choate,  a  political  opponent,  said  :  '  It  is  outra 
geously  magnificent."  *  As  it  lies  in  the  printed  vol- 


1  Lawyers,  for  example,  like  Sumner,   Richard  H.   Dana,  Jr.,  Ed 
ward  L.  Pierce,  arid  Samuel  H.  Sewall. 

2  His  remark  lo  Senator  Sumner. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  277 

umc  of  the  orator's  speeches,1  it  is  unnecessary  to 
attempt  a  summary.  The  effect  was  electric.  The 
Legislature  voted  to  remove  the  disgraced  official.2 
Temporarily  the  Governor  checkmated  the  will  of 
the  people  by  a  veto  ;3  ultimately,  the  measure  was 
signed  and  sealed,  and  Loring,  judge  no  longer, 
stepped  down  and  out.4 

Simultaneously  with  these  proceedings,  Mr.  Phil 
lips  presented  and  argued  the  question  of  a  "  Per 
sonal  Liberty  Act."  It  is  enough  to  say  of  this 
argument  that  it  takes  rank  with  the  other.  It  is 
remarkable  for  the  same  passion  for  freedom, — the 
same  profound  knowledge  of  the  law, — the  same  ex 
haustive  marshalling  of  authorities, — the  same  lumi 
nous  reasoning.  This,  too,  was  successful — the  act 
was  adopted  with  an  hurrah.6  What  were  its  pro 
visions  ?  Read  : 

11  Habeas  Corpus  was  secured  to  the  alleged  fugitive  ;  no  con 
fessions  of  his  were  admissible,  but  the  burden  of  proof  was  to 
be  upon  the  claimant,  and  no  ex  parte  affidavit  was  to  be  re 
ceived.  For  a  State  office-holder  to  issue  a  warrant  under  the 
law  was  tantamount  to  a  resignation  ;  lor  an  attorney  to  assist 
the  claimant  was  to  forfeit  his  right  to  practice  in  the  State 
courts  ;  for  a  judge  to  do  either  was  to  make  himself  liable  to 
impeachment  or  removal  by  address.  No  United  States  Com 
missioner  under  ihe  Fugitive  Slave  Law  should  hold  any  State 
office.  No  sheriff,  jailer,  or  policeman  should  help  arrest  a 
fugitive,  no  jail  receive  him.  The  militia  should  not  be  called 
out  on  the  claimant's  behalf.  The  Governor  should  appoint 


1  Vide  "  Speeches,"  pp.  154-212. 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxv.f  p.  82.  8  Ib. 

4  Ib.,  vol.  xxviii.,  pp.  42,  46,  50.     The  removal  was  finally  made  in 
the  spring  of  1858. 

"  Acts  and  Resolves  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  924. 


2;8  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

County  Commissioners  to  defend  fugitives  and  secure  them  a 
fair  trial."  l 

Thorough  ?  Of  course — was  not  Mr.  Phillips  sub 
stantially  its  author?  Efficacious?  Yes— no  fugi 
tive  slave  was  ever  afterward  remanded  from  the 
old  Bay  State.  And  the  example  proved  contagious. 
State  after  State  made  haste  to  copy  it.2 

The  various  Anti-Slavery  societies  held  their  an 
niversaries  in  New  York  and  Boston  in  the  May 
of  1855,  the  prevalent  excitement  and  the  famed 
vigor  of  their  speakers  making  them  the  events  of 
the  week. 

"  The  people,"  wrote  Mr.  Phillips  to  a  friend,  "  never  tire  of 
listening  to  and  applauding  the  most  radical  of  our  number. 
The  Scotch  proverb  runs  : 

'  The  king  said,  "  Sail  !" 
The  wind  said,  "  No  !"  ' 

No  need  to  ask  whether  there  was  a  voyage.      So  now  when 
slavery  says,  '  Sail  ! '  let  liberty  say,  '  No  !  '  "  3 

An  occurrence  which  interested  him  greatly  was 
the  celebration  of  the  twentieth  anniversary  of  the 
Garrison  mob  ;  which  took  place  in  October,  in  the 
very  hall  (Stacy  Hall)  out  of  which  Mayor  Loring 
had  driven  the  women  of  Boston  who  had  assembled 
there  to  discuss  the  peculiar  institution.  Many  of 
the  heroines  of  1835  were  present  in  1855.  The 
scene  was  solemn  and  historic.  Francis  Jackson  in 
the  chair  (the  brave  merchant  who  had  made  his 
house  the  asylum  of  free  speech  when  the  city 
tabooed  it)  ;  Garrison  on  the  platform  ;  Phillips 
inside  now,  instead  of  on  the  street  ;4  sympathy,  in 

1  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  416.       2  Ib.,  pp.  459,  460. 

3  Letter  from  Wendell  Phillips  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher  (MS.). 

4  Ante,  p.  57. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2/9 

place  of  riot  ;— what  a  change  !  Mr.  Phillips  for  the 
benefit  of  posterity,  recited  the  story  of  the  mob, 
and  did  it  as  only  he  could,  in  words  that  fell  at  first 
in  a  golden  shower,  deepening  at  last  into  a  rain  of 
fire. 

"I  thank  these  women,"  he  said,  in  closing,  "for  all  they 
have  taught  me.  I  had  read  Greek  and  Roman  and  English 
history  ;  I  had  by  heart  the  classic  eulogies  of  brave  old  men 
and  martyrs  ;  I  dreamed,  in  my  folly,  that  I  heard  the  same  tone 
in  my  youth  from  the  cuckoo  lips  of  Edward  Everett  ;— these 
women  taught  me  my  mistake.  They  taught  me  that  down  in 
those  hearts  which  loved  a  principle  for  itself,  asked  no  man's 
leave  to  think  or  speak,  true  to  their  convictions,  no  matter  at 
what  hazard,  flowed  the  real  blood  of  '76,  of  1640,  of  the  hem 
lock-drinker  of  Athens,  and  of  the  martyr-saints  of  Jerusalem. 
I  thank  them  for  it  !  My  eyes  were  sealed,  so  that,  although  I 
knew  the  Adamses  and  the  Otises  of  1776,  and  the  Mary  D>ers 
and  Ann  Hutchinsons  of  older  times,  I  could  not  recognize  the 
Adamses  and  Otises,  the  Dyers  and  the  Hutchinsons,  whom  I 
met  in  the  streets  of  '35.  These  women  opened  my  eyes,  and  I 
thank  them  and  you  (turning  to  Mrs.  Southwick  and  Miss  Hen 
rietta  Sargent,  who  sat  upon  the  platform)  for  that  anointing. 
May  our  next  twenty  years  prove  us  all  apt  scholars  of  such 
brave  instruction  !"  l 

The  autumn  of  1855  was  devoted  by  Mr.  Phillips, 
after  his  custom,  to  lecturing.  The  Lyceum  system 
was  at  its  noon — that  remarkable  institution  which 
gathered  audiences  throughout  the  free  States  to  sit 
at  the  feet  of  the  great  speakers  of  the  country.  It 
was  a  kind  of  church  without  a  creed,  and  with  a 
constant  rotation  of  clergymen  ;  a  kind  of  party 
without  a  platform,  and  with  orators  of  every  opinion 
— neutral  ground  ;  so  that  he  who  could  give  the 
best  reason  carried  off  the  most  honor.  Beginning  as 


"  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  by  Wendell  Phillips,  pp.  226,  227. 


280  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

a  literary  recreation,  it  became  a  continental  rostrum 
where  questions  of  any  and  every  sort  were  dis 
cussed.  The  political  issues  of  the  period  were  per 
petually  introduced.  The  utterances  of  the  lecturers 
compromised  no  one  save  the  lecturers  themselves, 
and  as  the  various  lyceums  endeavored  to  give  all 
sides  a  hearing,  the  system  filled  an  important  place 
in  American  life.  This  was  the  special  realm  of 
Wendell  Phillips.  Here  he  was  king  ;  and  his  min 
isters  of  state  were  Chapin,  Beecher,  Gough,  Curtis, 
and  no  end  of  others,  a  motley  and  often  an  insur 
gent  multitude.  The  collision  of  opinions,  the  con 
sequent  sharpening  of  wits,  and  the  toleration  which 
resulted  from  hearing  all  sides,  spiced  these  uncon 
ventional  assemblies,  made  them  amazingly  popular, 
and  gave  them  rare  educational  value. 

The  New  Englanders,  then  as  now,  were  in  the 
habit  of  observing  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  and 
kissing  the  Yankee  Blarney-stone.  William  H. 
Seward  was  the  orator  at  Plymouth  in  December, 
1855.  His  oration  was  a  worthy  tribute  to  the 
founders  of  empire  on  this  side  of  the  water.  Phil 
lips  was  present  as  a  guest  of  the  Plymouth  Society, 
and  spoke  brilliantly  at  the  dinner-table.  Here  is 
an  illustrative  story  which  he  told  : 

"The  Phillipses,  Mr.  President,  did  not  come  from  Plym 
outh  ;  they  made  their  longest  stay  at  Andover.  Let  me  tell 
you  an  Andover  story.  One  day,  a  man  went  into  a  store  there, 
and  began  telling  about  a  fire.  '  There  had  never  been  such  a 
fire/  he  said,  '  in  the  county  of  Essex.  A  man  going  by  Deacon 
Pettingill's  barn  saw  an  owl  on  the  ridge-pole.  He  fired  at  the 
owl,  and  the  wadding  somehow  or  other,  getting  into  the  shingles, 
set  the  hay  on  fire,  and  it  was  all  destroyed, — ten  tons  of  hay, 
six  head  of  cattle,  the  finest  horse  in  the  country,  etc.  The 
deacon  was  nearly  crazed  by  it.'  The  men  in  the  store  began 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  28 1 

exclaiming  and  commenting  on  it.  '  What  a  loss  !  '  says  one. 
'  Why,  the  deacon  will  well-nigh  break  down  under  it,'  says  an 
other.  And  so  they  went  on,  speculating  one  after  another,  and 
the  conversation  drifted  on  in  all  sorts  of  conjectures.  At  last, 
a  quiet  man,  who  sat  spitting  in  the  fire,  looked  up,  and  asked, 
'Did  he  hit  the  owl?'  (Tumultuous  applaitse.}  That  man 
was  made  for  the  sturdy  reformer,  of  one  idea,  whom  Mr.  Seward 
described."  J 

Events  hurried.  Alter  a  parliamentary  struggle 
prolonged  through  two  months,  on  February  2d, 
1856,  the  free  States  elected  N.  P.  Banks  Speaker 
of  the  Lower  House  of  Congress — "  the  first  gun  at 
Lexington  of  the  new  revolution,"  said  Mr.  Garri 
son.2  This  victory  was  soon  followed  by  an  act 
which  made  a  universal  spectacle  of  the  barbarism 
that  masqueraded  as  chivalry  by  transplanting  to 
Washington  the  manners  and  habits  of  the  planta 
tion.  In  May,  Senator  Sumner  spoke  in  the  Senate 
on  "  The  Crime  against  Kansas."  On  the  22d  of 
the  month,  for  words  spoken  in  debate,  Preston  S. 
Brooks,  a  representative  from  South  Carolina,  as 
saulted  him.  The  attack  was  a  blow  at  liberty  ;  the 
manner  of  it  was  an  exposure  of  Southern  "  gallan 
try."  While  Sumner  sat  at  his  desk  engaged  in 
writing,  Brooks  crept  up  behind  him,  and,  without 
warning,  struck  him  again  and  again  upon  the  head 
with  a  heavy  gutta-percha  cane.  The  senator,  half 
stunned  by  the  blows,  strove  to  rise  and  free  himself 
from  the  restraint  of  the  desk.  He  succeeded  in 
wrenching  it  from  the  floor  to  which  it  was  screwed, 
but  fell  unconscious  in  the  endeavor  to  rise.  Keitt, 
Douglass,  Toombs,  and  other  members  of  Congress 


1  Phillips's  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  236,  237. 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxvi.,  p.  23. 


282  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

looked  on  in  silence — in  that  kind  of  silence  \vhich 
gave  consent.  Sumner's  fall  saved  his  life.  Had 
he  risen  and  turned,  Brooks,  who  was  armed,  would 
have  shot  him.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  Jefferson  Davis, 
of  Mississippi,  leading  senators,  the  Southern  press, 
and  sections  of  the  Northern,  applauded  the  deed.1 

So,  then,  the  debate  was  to  be  one  of  bludgeons. 
The  man-stealers  and  woman-whippers  introduced 
into  the  halls  of  Congress  their  familiar  home  meth 
ods  of  discussion. 

The  wrath  of  the  North  was  wide  and  hot.  Indig 
nation  meetings  abounded.  Mr.  Phillips  regarded 
them  with  disgust.  He  held  that  the  proper  reply 
of  Massachusetts  would  be  to  call  home  her  repre 
sentatives.2  He  spent  many  years  in  trying  to  per 
suade  the  North  to  adopt  the  remedy  for  the  terrific 
evil  of  which  such  acts  were  the  inevitable  symp 
toms,  that  the  Civil  War  at  length  forced  upon  it— 
the  remedy  of  non-complicity.  In  a  statement  of  the 
attendant  circumstances  of  the  case,  he  notes  it  as 
a  significant  fact,  suggestive  of  the  extent  to  which 
Southern  sympathy  had  infected  the  wealthy  and 
fashionable  circles  in  the  North,  that  the  leading 
citizens  of  Boston  itself  refused  to  take  part  in  the 
gatherings  to  rebuke  the  deed  ;  and  he  adds  :  "  When 
Mr.  Sumner  returned  to  Boston,  November  3d,  1856, 
though  received  by  crowds  in  the  streets  and  by  the 
State  authorities,  the  windows  of  every  house  in 
Beacon  Street  (the  Mite  quarter)^  through  which  he 
passed,  except  those  of  Prescott  and  Samuel  Apple- 


1  Phillips's  Sketch  of  Sumner,  in  Johnson's  New   Universal  Cyclo* 
p<zdiat  in  loco. 

*  Vide  his  various  speeches  of  the  period  in  the  Liberator. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  28j 

ton,  had  their  blinds  closed  to  show  indifference  or 
contempt." 

Treading  close  upon  the  heels  of  the  assault  upon 
Sumner,  came  that  history-making  Convention  at 
Philadelphia  which  organized  the  Republican  part}7. 
The  Free  Soil  party  was  now  only  a  name.  The 
Whig  party  was  nothing  but  a  memory— 

"  Wicked  but  in  will,  of  means  bereft," 

its  Pro-Slavery  elements  had  been  absorbed  in  the 
Democratic  party,  which  the  South  had  selected  for 
its  perfect  service.  Its  Anti- Slavery  constituents 
made  overtures  to  the  Free  Soil  chiefs  and  suggested 
a  union.  Recognizing  the  propriety  of  not  requir 
ing  either  to  join  the  other,  both  suggested  a  new 
party  with  a  new  name.  At  the  Quaker  City,  on 
June  1 7th,  the -fusion  was  consummated  and  the 
name  was  coined — the  Republican  party  commenced 
its  career.  Amid  unbounded  enthusiasm  the  plat 
form  was  adopted.  It  welcomed  all,  without  regard 
to  past  differences,  who  were  opposed  to  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise, — all  who  were  against 
the  extension  of  slavery  into  the  Territories, — all  who 
favored  the  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  free  State.3 
John-C.  Fremont  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency, 
and  Jessie,  his  wife,  became  the  rallying  cry  of  the 
ne\v  political  crusade.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  Con 
vention  soon  communicated  itself  to  the  country. 
Who  that  witnessed  it  can  ever  forget  the  canvass 
that  followed, — the  "  wide-awake"  clubs, — the  torch 
light  processions, — the  frenzied  meetings, — the  hur- 


1  Johnson's  New  Universal  Cyclopedia,  Phillips' s  Notice  of  Sumner. 

2  /£.,  Dana's  article  on  the  Republican  party. 


284  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

rying  to  and  fro, — the  bombarding-'  press, — the  pas 
sion  of  words, — the  war  of  ballots  ?  The  recollec 
tion  of  those  thrilling-  scenes  lives  side  by  side  with 
the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion  itself,  of  which,  in 
deed,  they  were  the  prelude. 

James  Buchanan  was  elected  ;  but  by  a  narrow 
majority.  The  South  forecast  the  future.  The 
slave-holders  drew  their  heads  closer  together  and 
multiplied  their  conferences  and  their  plots. 

Mr.  Phillips  welcomed  the  advent  of  the  Republi 
can  party.  He  regarded  its  canvass  as  a  public  edu 
cation.  But  he  was  too  much  of  a  seer  to  believe 
in  its  competency,  with  its  avowed  principles,  to 
effect  a  cure  of  the  national  distemper.  It  afforded 
alleviation — nothing  more.  The  Republican  party 
clamored  for  the  non-extension  of  slavery.  He 
sought  its  death.  The  Republican  party  said,  "  Lo 
calize  it. "  He  knew  that  even  though  localized  it 
would,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  continue  to  dis 
tract  and  convulse.  The  Republican  party  said, 
"  Slavery  must  let  go  of  Kansas."  He  retorted, 
"  Slavery  must  set  every  bondman  free."  The 
Republican  party  said,  ''Bind  the  maniac."  lie 
advised,  "  Cast  out  the  devil." 

Presently  God  vindicated  the  wisdom  of  Mr,  Phil 
lips. 

With  such  convictions,  he  signed  the  call  for  a 
Disunion  Convention,  to  be  held  in  Worcester, 
Mass.,  in  January,  1857.  The  Convention  met  on 
the  1 5th  inst.  with  a  large  attendance.1  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  Joshua  R.  Geddings,  Amasa  Walker, 
Henry  Wilson,  and  other  prominent  men,  sent  let- 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxvii.,  pp.  14,  27. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  285 

ters,  —all  in  sympathy  with  the  object  of  the  Aboli 
tionists,  but  in  opposition  to  their  methods.1  Mr. 
Garrison  spoke  at  length,  and  in  advocacy  of  his 
familiar  maxim  of  "  No  Union  with  slave-holders." 
Mr.  Phillips  made  two  speeches,  in  which  he  criti 
cised  the  limitations  of  the  Republican  propaganda  ; 
reaffirmed  his  unalterable  purpose  to  contend,  not 
for  the  non-extension  of  slavery,  but  for  its  destruc 
tion  ;  emphasized  the  fact  that  the  Union  of  the  free 
States  with  the  slave  States  brought  these  into  neces 
sary  complicity  with  those,  by  tying  them  together 
under  a  Pro- Slavery  Constitution,  by  mortgaging 
the  wealth  and  power  of  the  North  to  the  South, 
and  by  exposing  liberty  in  one  section  to  the  demor 
alizing  influences  of  slavery  in  the  other  ;  recited  the 
history  of  the  past  in  proof  of  it  ;  asserted  the  ability 
of  the  free  States  to  form  an  unstained  Union  that 
should  be  strong  as  well  as  free  ;  and  ended  by  de 
claring  his  belief  that  the  mere  act  of  withdrawal 
would  win  the  plaudits  of  civilization  and  go  far  to 
carry  emancipation  down  to  the  Gulf.a 

The  tone  of  these  speeches  is  calm,  logical,  phil 
osophical.  They  are  keen  as  the  maxims  of  Roche- 
loucauld,  racy  as  any  pages  of  Dean  Swift,  sugges 
tive  as  an  essay  by  Emerson,  and  uncompromising 
as — Wendell  Phillips.  '  The  South,"  said  he,  "  is 
eternally  crying  :  '  Give  us  our  way,  or  we  will 
break  up  the  Union  !  '  Let  us  reply  :  '  Free  your 
slaves,  or  we  will  dissolve  it  !  '  This  position  had 
one  supreme  advantage  :  it  met  the  slave-holders  on 
their  own  ground,  answered  them  in  their  own  tone 
—everybody  could  understand  it. 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxvii.,  p.  15.  5  Ib.,  pp.  18,  32. 


286  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  Disunion  Convention  had  hardly  adjourned, 
when  the  oligarchy,  speaking-  this  time  through  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  announced  a 
decision  which  emphasized  the  declarations  of  Mr. 
Phillips  touching  the  Pro-Slavery  character  of  the 
Union.  Dred  Scott,  a  negro  slave,  had  been  carried 
by  his  master,  an  army  officer,  into  a  free  State, 
Here  he  married  the  slave  woman  of  another  officer. 
Both  were  sold  and  returned  to  Missouri  ;  where 
Scott  sued  for  their  freedom,  alleging  that  their 
transportation  into  a  free  State  had  ipso  facto  worked 
their  emancipation.  The  case  was  decided  adversely 
in  the  State  courts, — was  appealed  to  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  nation, — and  now,  Chief  Justice  Taney 
decided,  in  brief,  that  the  Constitution  recognized 
no  distinction  between  slaves  and  other  property  ; 
that  slaves,  therefore,  might  be  taken  wherever  other 
property  might  be  taken  ;  that  the  Union  was  bound 
to  protect  property-owners  against  all  assailants  ; 
and  that  the  black  race,  as  beings  of  an  inferior 
order,  "  had  no  rights  which  white  men  were  bound 
to  respect."  ' 

Thus  did  the  South  put  back  of  the  various  laws 
of  Congress  on  the  questions  at  issue,  and  back  of 
the  Constitution,  the  authoritative  interpretation  of 
the  tribunal  of  last  appeal.  Slavery  was  sustained. 
The  free  State  laws  discriminating  slave  property 
from  other  property  were  unconstitutional  and  \7oid. 
Slavery  was  national — freedom  was  sectional. 

'  Well,"  commented  Mr.  Phillips,  as  he  finished 
reading  the  dictum  of  Chief  Justice  Taney,  "  on  all 
the  legal  points  involved,  the  Supreme  Court  sus- 


Vide  Liberator^  vol.  xxvii.,  p.  45. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  287 

tains  my  claims  for  a  dozen  years.  It  is  infamous. 
But  it  is  the  law  of  the  United  States.  How  now 
about  the  Pro  Slavery  character  of  the  Union  ?  Am 
I  not  right  in  seeking-  to  withdraw  ?" 

The  Dred  Scott  decision  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
Northern  leaders.  For  the  m  first  time  they  saw, 
what  the  Abolitionists  had  seen  since  1843 — the  ever 
lasting  impossibility  of  mixing  oil  and  water,  fire  and 
snow,  life  and  death.  The  South  had  recognized  it, 
too  ;  and  had  been  striving  with  magnificent  audacity 
for  years  and  years  to  nationalize  slavery,  to  sup 
plant  freedom,  with  only  such  resistance  at  the  North 
as  a  little  band  of  "  fanatics"  could  make.  Now, 
the  Rip-Van-Winkle  North  awoke  from  its  long 
sleep,  rubbed  its  eyes,  and  realized  that  twice  two 
are  four  !  Thus,  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  a  speech  at 
Springfield,  111.,  on  June  i;th,  1858,  exclaimed  : 

4  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.'  I 
believe  this  Union  cannot  endure  permanently  half- 
slave  and  half-free."  These  words  made  the  polit 
ical  fortune  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Three  years  earlier, 
William  Lloyd  Garrison  had  uttered  precisely  the 
same  words — and  they  fell  on  deaf  ears.3 

In  the  same  strain  spoke  William  H.  Seward,  on 
October  25th,  1858,  at  Rochester,  N.  Y.  :  "  Shall  I 
tell  you  what  this  collision  means  ?  They  who  think 
it  is  accidental,  unnecessary,  the  work  of  interested 
and  fanatical  agitators,  and  therefore  ephemeral, 
mistake  the  case  altogether.  It  is  an  irrepressible  » 
conflict  between  opposing  and  enduring  forces,  and  \ 


Letter  to  Theodore  Parker  (MS.). 

Vide  Arnold's  "  Lincoln/'  p.  114. 

"  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vo).  Hi.,  p.  420. 


288  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

it  means  that  the  United  States  must  and  will,  sooner 
or  later,  become  either  entirely  a  slave-holding  na 
tion  or  entirely  a  free-labor  nation."  1 

This  idea  of  an  "  irrepressible  conflict"  was  as 
trite  as  the  multiplication  table  to  Mr.  Phillips.  He 
had  been  proclaiming  it  almost  from  the  start,  and 
had  outlined  the  only  adequate  remedy — the  de 
struction  of  slavery.  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward 
had  now  reached  the  proclamation.  They  were  still 
several  years  on  the  other  side  of  the  remedy. 

Hume,  a  Tory  historian,  thanks  the  Puritans  for 
saving"  liberty  in  England.  An  American  Hume 
will  one  day  thank  the  Abolitionists  for  saving  it 
here. 


1  Quoted  in  the  Liberator,  vol.  xxviii.,  p.  177. 


XXII. 

IRREPRESSIBLE   CONFLICT. 

LIKE  a  calm  morning  which  scowls  by  and  by  in 
cloud  and  storm,  so  broke  the  year  1859,  A  ^ew  °^ 
the  weather-wise  ones  scanned  the  horizon  and  dis 
cerned  the  signs  of  the  approaching  tempest.  Most 
listened  incredulously,  and  trod  on  about  their  busi 
ness.  The  disorders  continued  in  Kansas.  It  was 
civil  war  in  miniature.  But  the  country  had  grown 
used  to  that.  The  South,  complacent  over  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  and  intrenched  behind  three  lines  of 
fortification, — the  White  House,  Congress,  and  the 
Supreme  Court,  was  resting  on  its  arms.  At  the 
North,  the  Republicans  were  recruiting  and  drilling 
for  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1860. 

The  great  anniversaries  were  held  as  usual, — the 
meetings  crowded, — the  speakers  trenchant,  —the 
discussions  touching  this  and  that  phase  of  current 
affairs.  On  May  I2th,  Mr.  Phillips  spoke  at  a  turbu 
lent  session  of  the  National  Women's  Rights  Con 
vention,  in  New  York  City.  One  after  the  other, 
the  orators  of  the  occasion  were  driven  off  the  plat 
form  by  cat-calls  and  yells,  until  he  took  it  and  for 
two  hours  did  as  he  would  with  the  mocking  crowd. 
In  closing  he  said  : 

"  I  have  neither  the  disposition  nor  the  strength  to  trespass 
any  longer  upon  your  attention.  The  subject  is  so  large,  that  it 
might  well  fill  days  instead  of  hours.  It  covers  the  whole  sur 
face  of  American  society.  It  touches  religion,  purity,  political 


290  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

economy,  wages,  the  safety  of  cities,  the  growth  of  ideas,  the 
very  success  of  our  experiment.  If  this  experiment  of  self-gov 
ernment  is  to  succeed,  it  is  to  succeed  by  some  saving  element 
introduced  into  the  politics  of  the  present  day.  You  know  this  : 
your  Websters,  your  Clays,  your  Calhouns,  your  Douglases, 
however  intellectually  able  they  may  have  been,  have  never 
dared  or  cared  to  touch  that  moral  element  of  our  national  life. 
Either  the  shallow  and  heartless  trade  of  politics  had  eaten  out 
their  own  moral  being,  or  they  feared  to  enter  the  unknown  land 
of  lofty  right  and  wrong. 

"  Neither  of  these  great  names  has  linked  its  fame  with  one 
great  moral  question  of  the  day.  They  deal  with  money  ques 
tions,  with  tariffs,  with  parties,  with  State  law  ;  and  if,  by 
chance,  they  touch  the  slave  question,  it  is  only  like  Jewish 
hucksters  trading  in  the  relics  of  saints.  The  reformers — the 
fanatics,  as  we  are  called — are  the  only  ones  who  have  launched 
social  and  moral  questions.  I  risk  nothing  when  I  say,  that  the 
Anti-Slavery  discussion  of  the  last  twenty  years  has  been  the 
salt  of  this  nation  :  it  has  actually  kept  it  alive  and  wholesome. 
Without  it  our  politics  would  have  sunk  beyond  even  contempt. 
So  with  this  question.  It  stirs  the  deepest  sympathy  ;  it  appeals 
to  the  highest  moral  sense  ;  it  inwraps  within  itself  the  greatest 
moral  issues.  Judge  it,  then,  candidly,  carefully,  as  Americans  ; 
and  let  us  show  ourselves  worthy  of  the  high  place  to  which  God 
has  called  us  in  human  affairs."  l 

Two  weeks  later,  Mr.  Phillips  addressed  the  New 
England  section  of  the  same  reform.  We  subjoin 
two  paragraphs  : 

"  Many  a  young  girl,  in  her  early  married  life,  loses  her  hus 
band,  and  thus  is  left  a  widow  with  two  or  three  children.  Now, 
who  is  to  educate  them  and  control  them  ?  We  see,  if  left  to 
her  own  resources,  the  intellect  which  she  possesses,  and  which 
has  remained  in  a  comparatively  dormant  state,  displayed  in  its 
full  power.  What  a  depth  of  heart  lay  hidden  in  that  woman  ! 
She  takes  her  husband's  business,  guides  it  as  though  it  were  a 
trifle  ;  she  takes  her  sons,  and  leads  them  ;  sets  her  daughters 


1  Austin's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  pp.  164,  165. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  2QI 

an  example  ;  like  a  master-leader  she  governs  the  whole  house 
hold.  That  is  woman's  influence.  What  made  that  woman  ? 
Responsibility.  Call  her  out  from  weakness,  lay  upon  her  soul 
the  burden  of  her  children's  education,  and  she  is  no  longer  a 
girl,  but  a  woman. 

"  Horace  Greeley  once  said  to  Margaret  Fuller,  '  If  you  should 
ask  a  woman  to  carry  a  ship  around  Cape  Horn,  how  would  she 
go  to  work  to  do  it  ?  Let  her  do  this,  and  I  will  give  up  the 
question.'  In  the  fall  of  1856  a  Boston  girl,  only  twenty  years 
of  age,  accompanied  her  husband  to  California.  A  brain  fever 
laid  him  low.  In  the  presence  of  mutiny  and  delirium,  she  took 
his  vacant  post,  preserved  order,  and  carried  her  cargo  safe  to 
its  destined  port.  Looking  in  the  face  of  Mr.  Greeley,  Miss 
Fuller  said,  '  Lo  !  my  dear  Horace,  it  is  done.  Now,  say,  what 
shall  woman  do  next  ?  '  "  {Cheers.}  1 

So  passed  the  morning,  so  passed  the  noon  of  1859. 
In  the  afternoon  of  the  year  Massachusetts  did  some 
thing  that  stirred  Mr.  Phillips  to  protest.  The  State 
permitted  the  statue  of  Webster  to  be  placed  in  the 
State-House  yard,  with  ostentatious  ceremonies — 
Edward  Everett  eulogizing  the  recreant  statesman 
who  had  gone  over  to  the  South  in  the  "  battle  of 
the  giants,"  and  had  bidden  the  commonwealth 
"  smother  its  prejudices"  and  consent  to  hunt  slaves. 

A  few  weeks  later,  on  October  4th,  Mr.  Phillips 
opened  the  "  Fraternity"  lecture  course — the  most 
popular  Lyceum  platform  in  Boston.  The  result 
was  his  lecture  on  "  Idols,"  which,  as  a  specimen  of 
rhetoric  and  invective,  is  unexcelled.  Referring  to 
the  statue,  he  said  : 

"  No  man  criticises  when  private  friendship  moulds  the  loved 
form  in 

'  Stone  that  breathes  and  struggles, 
Or  brass  that  seems  to  speak.' 

1  Austin's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  166. 


292  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Let  Mr.  Webster's  friends  crowd  their  own  halls  and  grounds 
with  his  bust  and  statues.  That  is  no  concern  of  ours.  But 
when  they  ask  the  State  to  join  in  doing  him  honor,  then  we 
claim  the  right  to  express  an  opinion.  .  .  .  We  cannot  but  re 
member  that  the  character  of  the  commonwealth  is  shown  by 
the  character  of  those  it  crowns.  A  brave  old  Englishman  tells 
us  the  Greeks  had  officers  who  did  pluck  down  statues  if  they 
exceeded  due  symmetry  and  proportion.  *  We  need  such  now,' 
he  adds,  '  to  order  monuments  according  to  men's  merits.'  In 
deed  we  do  !  When  I  think  of  the  long  term  and  wide  reach  of 
his  influence,  and  look  at  the  subjects  of  his  speeches, — the  mere 
shells  of  history,  drum-and-trumpet  declamation,  dry  law,  or 
selfish  bickerings  about  trade, — when  I  think  of  his  bartering 
the  hopes  of  four  millions  of  bondmen  for  the  chances  of  his 
private  ambition,  I  recall  the  criticism  on  Lord  Eldon, — '  No 
man  ever  did  his  race  so  much  good  as  Eldon  prevented.' 
Again,  when  I  remember  the  close  of  his' life  spent  in  ridiculing 
the  Anti-Slavery  movement  as  useless  abstraction,  moonshine, 
'  mere  rub-a-dub  agitation,'  because  it  did  not  minister  to  trade 
and  gain,  methinks  I  seem  to  see  written  all  over  his  statue 
Tocqueville's  conclusion  from  his  survey  of  French  and  Ameri 
can  democracy, — '  The  man  who  seeks  freedom  for  anything 
but  freedom's  self,  is  made  to  be  a  slave  !  '  "  1 

The  echo  of  these  sentences  had  hardly  died 
away  when  others  were  heard,  sharper,  fiercer, 
more  deadly — the  echoes  of  John  Brown's  rifles 
among"  the  hills  of  Virginia  ! 

John  Brown  was  a  regular  Cromwellian  dug  up 
from  Naseby  and  Marston  Moor.  He  was  an  Old 
Testament  Christian,  whose  war-cry  was,  '  The 
sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon."  Going  to  Kan 
sas,  he  had  come  in  collision  there  with  the  "  border 
ruffians"  who  swarmed  across  the  boundaries  of  Mis 
souri  as  the  agents  of  slavery,  and  as  a  free-State 


^'Speeches   and   Lectures,"  by  Wendell  Phillips,    pp.  254,  259, 
260. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  293 

chieftain  had  won  fame  as  a  Marion  or  Sumter.  He 
was  a  devout  guerilla  of  freedom.  In  person,  tall, 
spare,  farmer-like,  he  was  built  for  roughing  it.1 

In  order  to  understand  this  man,  we  must  acquaint 
ourselves  with  his  character  and  surroundings. 
Those  marchings  and  countermarchings,  yonder  on 
the  wild  frontier,  the  skirmishes  in  Kansas,  inter 
spersed  with  occasional  forays  across  the  border  into 
Missouri  to  snatch  slaves  into  liberty,  had  taught 
him  to  feel  that  war  already  existed,  and  had  sug 
gested  the  invasion  of  the  South  at  other  and  unsus 
pecting  points.  Accordingly,  he  came  East  in  1858, 
for  the  purpose  of  enlisting  the  co-operation  of 
friends  here  in  his  plans.  He  saw  Parker,  Higgin- 
son,  Sanborn,  and  secured  their  aid.  Garrison  was 
a  non-resistant  ;  hence  an  impossible  confidant. 
Phillips  was  conducting  a  movement  on  the  basis  of 
moral  suasion  ;  therefore  not  likely  to  exchange 
ideas  for  rifles.2  These  two  he  met,  but  he  shut 
them  out  from  his  confidence.  Having  secured  men 
and  material  in  modest  measure,  John  Brown  went 
into  the  neighborhood  of  Harper's  Ferry,  and  on  the 
night  of  October  i6th,  1859,  pounced  upon  the  town, 
seized  the  United  States  Armory,  and,  with  eighteen 
comrades,  held  the  place  for  twenty-four  hours. 
Then  he  was  fought  back  into  an  engine-house, 
wounded,  and  finally  captured  by  a  file  of  United 
States  marines  sent  from  Washington,  and  com 
manded  by  Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee,  afterward  gen 
eral  of  the  Confederate  armies.  Eight  of  his  band 
were  killed,  six  were  captured,  four  escaped.3 


1  Vide  "  The  Life  of  John  Brown,"  by  F.  B.  Sanborn. 
9  /*  8 


P-  552. 


294  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

What  followed  ?  Everybody  knows.  John  Brown 
was  indicted  for  "  murder  and  other  crimes," — tried, 
— convicted, — and,  on  December  2d,  1859,  hung. 
Thus  ended  the  Bunker  Hill  of  the  second  Revolu 
tion. 

Between  the  e'meute  and  the  execution  many  and 
stirring  scenes  were  enacted.  The  slave-holders 
were  naturally  affrighted.  Their  thoughts  by  day, 
their  dreams  by  night  were  haunted  by  spectres  of 
insurrection.  Northern  sentiment  was  divided.  The 
coolness  and  bravery  of  "  old  Ossawatomie,"  as  he 
was  called,  after  the  town  in  Kansas  where  he  dwelt, 
his  self-sacrifice  for  a  hated  race,  his  tenderness,  as 
shown  in  the  caress  of  a  negro  child  on  the  way  to 
the  scaffold,  a  dozen  stories  told  of  his  prudence, 
skill,  and  courage  on  the  border, —made  him  the 
hero  of  the  hour.  Nor  did  his  scheme  appear  so 
insane  at  last  as  it  did  at  first.  For  he  entered  Vir 
ginia — why  ?  He  told  his  captors  in  the  wonderful 
address  which  he  delivered  to  the  court  : 

"  I  deny  everything  but  what  I  have  all  along  admitted — the 
design  on  my  part  to  free  the  slaves.  I  intended,  certainly,  to 
have  made  a  clean  thing  of  the  matter,  as  I  did  last  winter,  when 
I  went  into  Missouri,  and  there  took  slaves  without  the  snapping 
of  a  gun  on  either  side,  moved  them  through  the  country,  and 
finally  left  them  in  Canada.  I  designed  to  have  done  the  same 
thing  again,  on  a  larger  scale.  That  was  all  I  intended.  I 
never  did  intend  murder,  treason,  or  the  destruction  of  prop 
erty,  or  to  excite  or  incite  slaves  to  rebellion,  or  to  make  insur 
rection."  ' 

He  had  succeeded  in  Missouri  ;  why  not  in  Vir 
ginia  ?  There  he  was  sane  enough  ;  why  crazy 
here? 


1  Sanborn's  "  Life  of  John  Brown." 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  295 

Comedy  and  tragedy  are  close  akin.  In  the  midst 
of  the  drama,  it  was  laughable  to  hear  the  various 
comments.  "  What  a  pity  he  did  not  succeed  !" 
"  Why  didn't  he  march  off  with  his  victory  during 
the  first  twenty-four  hours?"  '  What  an  outrage, 
to  try  a  man  while  wounded  and  lying  on  a  pallet !" 
Such  were  the  utterances  of  all  sorts  of  people  in  the 
streets,  on  the  cars,  at  the  fireside — indicative  of 
widespread  sympathy.1  The  truth  is,  the  South 
had  been  attacking  the  North  on  John  Brown's  prin 
ciple,  for  years — in  Kansas,  for  example,  and  in  the 
blow  at  Sumner.  This  was  only  tit  for  tat.  The 
North  widely  recognized  it.  Even  conservatives 
felt  a  silent  satisfaction,  which  was  occasionally  and 
grudgingly  expressed  as  in  the  remark  of  a  promi 
nent  Democrat  in  New  York  City  :  "  I  hope  it  will 
teach  the  South  that  playing  with  fire  is  danger 
ous."3 

Although  Mr.  Phillips  had  not  been  in  John 
Brown's  secret,  he  was  profoundly  stirred  by  his 
heroism.  The  orator  had  spent  his  life  .in  the  en 
deavor  to  avoid  the  need  of  precisely  such  methods. 
He  now  realized  that  a  new  phase  of  the  struggle 
was  at  hand.  On  November  ist,  1859,  ne  lectured 
in  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  dnd  tQgjT**  Har£er^s 
Ferry"  for  a  text.  The  lecture  was  as  sensational 
as  the  occasion.  It  is  sensational  even  as  read  to-day 
in  the  seclusion  of  the  library.  Turn  over  a  leaf  or 
two  : 

"  Has  the  slave  a  right  to  resist  his  master  ?  I  will  not  argue 
that  question  to  a  people  hoarse  with  shouting  ever  since  July 


1  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  by  Wendell  Phillips,  p.  286. 

2  So  said  the  Hon.  Daniel  S.  Dickinson  to  John  F.  Dix,  afterward 
Governor  of  New  York. 


296  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

4th,  1776,  that  all  men  are  created  equal,  that  the  right  to  liberty 
is  inalienable,  and  that  '  resistance  to  tyrants  is  obedience  to 
God.'  But  may  he  resist  to  blood— with  rifles  ?  What  need  of 
proving  that  to  a  people  who  load  down  Bunker  Hill  with  gran 
ite,  and  crowd  their  public  squares  with  images  of  Washington  ; 
ay,  worship  the  sword  so  blindly  that,  leaving  their  oldest  states 
men  idle,  they  go  down  to  the  bloodiest  battle-field  in  Mexico  to 
drag  out  a  President  ?  But  may  one  help  the  slave  resist,  as 
Brown  did  ?  Ask  Byron  on  his  death-bed  in  the  marshes  of 
Missolonghi.  Ask  the  Hudson  as  its  waters  kiss  your  shore, 
what  answer  they  bring  from  the  grave  of  Kosciusko.  I  hide  the 
Connecticut  Puritan  behind  Lafayette,  bleeding  at  Brandywine, 
in  behalf  of  a  nation  his  rightful  king  forbade  him  to  visit. 

"  But  John  Brown  violated  the  law.  Yes.  On  yonder  desk  lie 
the  inspired  words  of  men  who  died  violent  deaths  for  breaking 
the  laws  of  Rome.  Why  do  you  listen  to  them  so  reverently  ? 
Huss  and  Wickliffe  violated  laws  ;  why  honor  them  ?  George 
Washington,  had  he  been  caught  before  1783,  would  have  died 
on  the  gibbet,  for  breaking  the  laws  of  his  sovereign.  Yet  I 
have  heard  that  man  praised  within  six  months.  Yes,  you  say, 
but  these  men  broke  bad  laws.  Just  so.  It  is  honorable,  then, 
to  break  bad  laws,  and  such  law-breaking  history  loves  and  God 
blesses  !  Who  says,  then,  that  slave  laws  are  not  ten  thousand 
times  worse  than  any  those  men  resisted  ?  Whatever  argument 
excuses  them,  makes  John  Brown  a  saint."  1 

In  the  midst  of  this  excitement,  Mr.  Phillips,  who 
had  been  in  Philadelphia  a  few  days  before,  where  a 
threatened  mob  did  not  act,  wrote  to  Miss  Grew  : 

"  These  are  stirring  times  and  hopeful  for  the  cause.  I  am 
glad  the  mobocrat2  liked  me,  though  some  radical  might  think 
his  liking  an  equivocal  compliment  ;  but  I  accept  it  heartily.  It 
comports  with  my  philosophy.  I  have  become  so  notorious 


"  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  279  sq. 

2  The  "  mobocrat"  was  a  highly  distinguished  leader  of  riots  in 
Philadelphia,  who  was,  on  one  occasion,  so  entirely  captivated  by 
Mr.  Phillips' s  eloquence  that  he  sat  quietly  through  his  lecture,  and 
held  in  restraint  the  men  whom  he  had  led  thither  for  the  purpose  of 
breaking  up  the  meeting. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  297 

that  at  Albany,  Kingston,  and  Hartford,  the  Lyceum  could  not 
obtain  a  church  for  me  ;  and  the  papers  riddled  me  with  pellets 
for  a  week  ;  but  that  saved  advertising  and  got  me  larger  houses 
gratis.  At  Troy  they  even  thought  of  imitating  Staten  Island 
and  getting  up  a  Homoeopathic  mob,  but  couldn't."  l 

Mr.  Phillips's  marvellous  power  of  rapid  thought 
combined  with  peerless  expression,  is  well  known  to 
those  who  frequently  heard  him  in  lectures  or  de 
bate.  It  was  illustrated  on  the  occasion  referred  to 
in  the  letter  just  quoted,  when  he  delivered  in  Phila 
delphia  his  lecture  on  "  Toussaint  L'Ouverture. " 
The  execution  of  the  death-sentence  of  John  Brown 
was  near  at  hand.  Mr.  Phillips,  on  his  arrival  in  the 
city,  in  the  morning,  was  told  that  his  evening  audi 
ence  would  expect  him  to  speak  of  that  appalling 
fact.  He  replied  that  it  had  no  connection  with  the 
lecture  which  he  had  been  invited  to  deliver  ;  that 
an  interpolated  passage  upon  another  subject  was 
scarcely  to  be  thought  of.  But  he  was  assured  that, 
whether  it  belonged  to  the  lecture  or  not,  the  de 
mand  was  imperative  ;  speak  upon  it  he  must. 

From  the  time  of  his  arrival  in  the  city,  in  the 
morning,  until  his  appearance  upon  the  platform,  in 
the  evening,  with  the  exception  of  some  fifteen  min 
utes,  he  was  surrounded  by  his  friends,  and  occupied 
with  social  converse.  Yet  he  introduced  into  that 
lecture  an  eloquent  and  thrilling  passage  concerning 
John  Brown,  which  so  marvellously  fitted  into  it 
that  it  might  have  been  an  original  portion  of  it. 

While  John  Brown  lay  in  prison  awaiting  execu 
tion,  a  meeting  was  held  in  Boston  to  raise  funds  for 
the  relief  of  his  impoverished  family.  John  A.  An- 

1  Letter  to  Miss  Grew  (MS.).     An  attempt  was  made  to  mob  him  on 
Staten  Island  about  this  time,  but  failed. 


298  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

drew  presided.  Emerson  represented  New  Eng 
land  letters.  Phillips  stood  for  the  negro  race,  on 
whose  behalf  the  hero  was  condemned.  The  Rev. 
J.  M.  Manning,  of  the  "  Old  South  "  Church,  said  : 

'  I  am  here  to  represent  the  church  of  Sam  Adams 
and  Wendell  Phillips  ;  and  I  want  all  the  world  to 
know  that  I  am  not  afraid  to  ride  in  the  coach  when 
Wendell  Phillips  sits  on  the  box."  ' 

When  she  had  strangled  the  soul  out  of  it,  Vir 
ginia  delivered  the  body  of  John  Brown  to  his 
friends.  They  took  it  reverently  and  laid  it  in  the 
grave  at  North  Elba,  his  old  home,  with  the  Adiron- 
dacks  for  a  monument.  Mr.  Phillips  met  the  cortdge 
in  New  York  City,  and  journeyed  thence  to  the  final 
resting-place.  Standing  by  the  grave  he  pronounced 
the  burial  address,  from  which  we  give  an  extract  : 

14  Marvellous  old  man  !  ...  He  has  abolished  slavery  in 
Virginia.  You  may  say  this  is  too  much.  Our  neighbors  are 
the  last  men  we  know.  The  hours  that  pass  us  are  the  ones  we 
appreciate  the  least.  Men  walked  Boston  streets,  when  night 
fell  on  Bunker  Hill,  and  pitied  Warren,  saying,  '  Foolish  man  ! 
Thrown  away  his  life  !  Why  didn't  he  measure  his  means  bet 
ter  ?  '  Now  we  see  him  standing  colossal  on  that  blood  stained 
sod,  and  severing  that  day  the  tie  which  bound  Boston  to  Great 
Britain.  That  night  George  III.  ceased  to  rule  in  New  England. 
History  will  date  Virginia  emancipation  from  Harper's  Ferry. 
True,  the  slave  is  still  there.  So,  when  the  tempest  uproots  a 
pine  on  your  hills,  it  looks  green  for  months, — a  year  or  two. 
Still,  it  is  timber,  not  a  tree.  John  Brown  has  loosened  the 
roots  of  the  slave  system  ;  it  only  breathes, — it  does  not  live, — 
hereafter."  2 

This  was  a  long  look  ahead.  It  was  prophecy 
then  and  history  at  last.  Philosophers  love  to  trace 


1  Reminiscences  by  Charles  W.  Slack,  of  Boston. 

2  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  290. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  299 

the  result  to  the  cause, — to  find  the  result  in  the 
cause.  Phillips  did  this  at  North  Elba.  In  the  act 
ual  John  Brown  he  saw  a  million  possible  ones  ;  and 
in  the  possibility  he  beheld  the  end. 

There  was  a  Star-Cham ber  inquiry  at  Washington 
for  the  men  who  had  aided  and  abetted  John  Brown. 
Theodore  Parker,  T.  \V.  Higginson,  F.  B.  Sanborn, 
and  others,  were  suspected  ;  but  no  papers  could  be 
found.  They  existed  !  Mr.  Phillips  brought  a  bud 
get  of  them  from  North  Elba,  which  he  placed  for 
safe  keeping  in  the  hands  of  Governor  John  A.  An 
drew,  and  which  at  a  later  day  the  Governor  re 
turned  to  the  respective  writers.1  Had  these  been 
discovered,  John  Brown  would  not  have  hung  alone. 


Recollections  of  F.  B.  Sanborn  (MS.). 


XXIII. 

THE   WINTER  OF   SECESSION. 

IN  Macbeth,  the  witch  stirs  the  pot  and  utters  her 

incantation  : 

"  Black  spirits  and  white, 
Red  spirits  and  gray." 

So  now  all  kinds  of  spirits,  good,  bad,  nondescript, 
materialized,  each  paramount  in  turn.  Over  all, 
however,  was  the  Spirit  of  Providence  ! 

The  spirit  of  sorrow,  an  unbidden  guest,  sat  at 
many  hearthstones  when,  on  May  loth,  1860,  Theo 
dore  Parker  died.  Stricken  with  consumption,  he 
had  gone  to  Europe  in  search  of  health,  and  reaching 
Florence,  expired  within  sight  of  the  cathedral 
whose  doors  Michel  Angelo  said  were  fit  to  be  the 
gates  to  paradise.  Mr.  Phillips  went  heavy-hearted 
and  sober-faced  for  many  a  day.  That  home  in  the 
rear  of  his  own  residence  would  be  broken  up — was 
broken  up.  That  light  in  the  study  over  there  was 
quenched  at  last,  like  the  brighter  light  of  intellect 
and  goodness  that  had  kindled  and  outshone  it. 

In  their  grief,  the  congregation  of  Theodore 
Parker  turned  to  Mr.  Phillips.  They  were  not  in 
theological  sympathy,  but  they  were  in  personal  and 
moral  accord  ;  and  through  the  fall  and  winter  of 
1 860-61  the  orator  frequently  occupied  their  plat 
form,  delivering  from  it  several  of  his  most  cele 
brated  orations,  and  having  on  it  some  of  his  most 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  3<DI 

thrilling  experiences — as  we  shall  sec.  The  society 
of  Mr.  Parker  worshipped  in  the  Music  Hall.  A 
tender  commemorative  service  was  held  there  when 
the  sad  news  came  from  Italy,  at  which  Mr.  Phillips 
spoke  with  great  sweetness  and  beauty. 

On  November  i8th,  he  pronounced  before  the  same 
society  a  notable  discourse  on  "  The  Pulpit."  The 
utterance  is  interesting  and  important,  because  it 
gives  his  conception  of  its  functions  and  scope.  At 
the  outset,  Phillips  expressed  his  appreciation  of  the 
essential  idea  of  the  Church,  viz.,  the  stated  expres 
sion  of  devotional  feeling.  Then  he  urged  the  pulpit 
to  recognize  its  duty  and  preach  to  life.  He  believed 
the  Gospel  should  be  applied  to  daily  affairs.  He 
criticised  the  silence  of  the  ministry  on  living  ques 
tions,  and  declared  this  fatal  to  the  permanent  influ 
ence  and  usefulness  of  the  sacred  office.  The  func 
tion  of  the  pulpit,  he  said,  was  to  awake  and  instruct 
the  moral  nature.  He  then  proceeded  : 

"  Politics  takes  the  vassal  and  lifts  him  into  a  voter.  The 
press  informs  him  concerning  the  happenings  of  the  day.  The 
school  gives  him  elementary  instruction.  We  need  in  addition 
a  pulpit — moral  initiative.  I  value  the  Sunday  for  this  :  it  gives 
opportunity  for  such  instruction.  The  devil  invented  work — 
forced  it.  When  we  clutched  a  day  and  gave  it  to  the  soul,  we 
redeemed  one  seventh  of  the  time  from  the  devil  and  gave  it  to 
God.  The  pulpit  should  use  the  day  and  opportunity  for  the 
training  of  the  community  in  the  whole  encyclopaedia  of  morals 
— social  questions,  sanitary  matters,  slavery,  temperance,  labor, 
the  condition  of  women,  the  nature  of  the  Government,  responsi 
bility  to  law,  the  right  of  a  majority,  and  how  far  a  minority 
may  yield,  marriage,  health, — the  entire  list.  For  all  these  are 
moral  questions  and  they  are  living  questions,  not  metaphysics, 
not  dogmas.  Hindostan  settled  these  thousands  of  years  ago. 
Christianity  did  not  bury  itself  in  the  pit  of  Oriental  metaphysics  ; 
neither  did  it  shroud  itself  in  the  hermitage  of  Italian  doctrine. 


302  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  pulpit,  as  seen  in  the  North  of  Europe  and  in  this  country, 
is  not  built  up  of  mahogany  and  paint.  It  is  the  life  of  earnest 
men,  the  example  of  the  community  ;  a  forum  to  unfold,  broaden, 
and  help  mankind.  That  is  the  pulpit.  If  this  were  recognized 
and  acted  upon,  people  would  not  desert  the  Church,  as  they 
tend  to  do  ;  or  go,  if  at  all,  from  a  mere  sense  of  duty  ;  but 
would  be  drawn  to  the  pulpit  as  they  are  to  the  press  and  the 
theatre,  by  a  felt  want."  1 

The  spirit  of  discord  rent  the  Democratic  party 
in  twain  on. the  eve  of  the  election,  in  1860  ;  one  fac 
tion  insisting  upon  a  committal  of  the  party  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  equal  right  of  slave  property  to  enter 
all  the  Territories,  while  the  other  held  out  for  a  ref 
erence  of  the  whole  question  to  the  Supreme  Count 
— which  had  just  decided  it  affirmatively  in  the  Dred 
Scott  case  !  The  result  was  the  nomination  of 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  by  the  Northern,  and  of  John 
C.  Breckenridge  by  the  Southern,  Democrats.  This 
insured  the  election  of  the  Republican  candidate. 
The  truth  is  that  the  slave-holders  had  matured  and 
were  now  ready  to  precipitate  secession.  They  de 
liberately  engineered  the  disruption  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party  in  order  to  secure  Republican  success 
and  thus  gain  a  pretext  for  disunion.  But  this  was 
God's  way  of  providing  a  plentiful  contingent  of  war 
Democrats  presently,  when  they  should  be  needed. 

The  spirit  of  wisdom  guided  the. Republican  Con 
vention  to  the  choice  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  Presi 
dent,  instead  of  William  H.  Seward,  whom  every 
one  expected  to  win  the  nomination.  This  was 
God's  way  of  providing  the  man  for  the  hour. 

The  spirit  of  fun  called  into  being  a  "  Union" 
party,  which  served  to  introduce  an  element  of  hu- 


1  Vide  "  The  Pulpit,"  a  pamphlet  in  the  Boston  Public  Library. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  303 

mor  into  the  canvass,  keeping  the  country  in  good 
temper  before  it  went  quite  mad.  This  was  God's 
way  of  easing  up  the  nation  before  subjecting  it  to 
the  impending  strain. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected.  In  the  evening  of  the 
day  after  the  election,  while  the  streets  were  noisy 
with  paraders,  Mr.  Phillips  lectured  in  Boston. 

"  For  the  first  time  in  our  history,"  said  he,  "  the  slave  has 
elected  a  President.  In  1760  what  rebels  felt,  James  Otis  spoke, 
George  Washington  achieved,  and  Everett  praises  to-day. 
The  same  routine  will  go  on.  What  fanatics  now  feel,  Garrison 
prints,  Lincoln  will  achieve,  and,  at  the  safe  distance  of  half  a 
century,  some  courtly  Everett  will  embalm  in  matchless  pane 
gyrics.  You  see  exactly  what  my  hopes  rest  upon.  Growth  ! 
The  Republican  party  have  undertaken  a  problem  the  solution 
of  which  will  force  them  to  our  position."  1 

Mingling  with  the  spirits  mentioned,  yet  solitary, 
was  another,  hot  from  below  and  sulphureous, — the 
mob  spirit  now  abroad,  and  never  fiercer.  The 
Abolitionists  were  its  special  victims,  and  Boston,  as 
being  their  headquarters,  its  prominent  theatre.  On 
December  2d,  1860,  a  meeting  was  announced  in  the 
Tremont  Temple  to  discuss  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
It  was  the  anniversary  of  John  Brown's  execution. 
The  mayor  turned  mobocrat  and  thrust  the  discus- 
sionists  out  of  doors.  The  Belknap  Street  colored 
church  was  their  asylum  ;  a  roof  that  deserves  to 
be  held  in  honor  by  every  lover  of  free  speech  ;  for 
here  lips  were  ungagged  when  they  were  padlocked 
elsewhere  for  thirty  years.2 

"  Mr.  Phillips,"  writes  a  participant,  "  spoke  that  night  with 
regal  magnificence  and  dauntless  courage  ;  while  the  court-way 
beside  the  church,  and  the  street  in  front,  were  filled  with  angry 

"  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  294,  314.  2  Ante,  p.  70. 


304  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

and  yelling  rioters.  They  thought  Phillips  could  not  emerge 
without  passing  through  their  ranks,  and  they  were  prepared 
for  violence  toward  him.  But  there  was  a  rear  passage-way, 
very  narrow,  from  the  meeting-house  through  to  South  Russell 
Street  ;  and  out  by  that  avenue,  single  file,  walked  Phillips  and 
his  friends,  and  thence  up  the  hill  to  Myrtle,  and  so  to  Joy,  Street, 
and  across  the  Common  to  Mr.  Phillips's  Essex  Street  residence. 
When  the  mob  heard  that  Mr.  Phillips  had  escaped,  they  rushed 
up  the  hill,  and  overtook  his  escort  just  as  it  had  descended  the 
stone  steps  leading  to  the  Beacon  Street  mall.  They  found  a 
cordon  of  young  men,  forty  or  more  in  number,  who,  with  locked 
arms  and  closely  compacted  bodies,  had  Phillips  in  the  centre 
of  their  circle,  and  were  safely  bearing  him  home.  Timidity, 
or  a  conviction  that  an  assault  would  be  fruitless,  prompted 
them  to  take  satisfaction  at  the  discovery  only  in  yells  and  ex 
ecration."  1 

Two  weeks  later  Theodore  Parker's  church  in 
vited  the  orator  to  fill  their  pulpit.  The  Pro-Slavery 
sentiment  of  the  city  registered  an  oath  that  he 
should  not  speak.  He  concluded  that  he  would. 
And  he  selected  for  his  theme  the  men  who  had  at 
tempted  to  muzzle  free  speech  on  December  2d  : 

"  That  morning,"  says  one  of  the  officers  of  the  church,  "  saw 
a  crowd  within  its  walls  never  exceeded  since.  Mr.  Phillips 
was  on  hand  in  due  course,  calm  as  nature  on  a  spring  morning. 
Whoever  heard  that  discourse  never  will  forget  it.  It  was,  from 
beginning  to  end,  one  terrible  arraignment  of  the  mob-spirit  in 
America.  He  used  no  rose-water  flavor  in  describing  the  rioters 
of  the  Tremont  Temple  gathering,  but  in  the  most  scathing  lan 
guage  made  personal  issue  with  the  well-known  social  and  polit 
ical  leaders  on  that  occasion.  As  he  poured  out  his  blistering 
anathemas,  I  sat  trembling  lest  I  should  hear  the  snap  of  a  pistol 
that  should  send  a  ball  into  his  glowing  and  pulsating  form. 
But  there  was  no  violence  attempted.  His  sympathizers  fully 
equalled  the  malecontents  ;  and  the  mayor,  on  the  appeal  of  the 
directors  of  the  hall,  had  the  audience  interspersed  with  police- 


1  "  Reminiscences  of  Charles  W.  Slack." 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  305 

men  in  plain  clothes.  When  the  services  were  over,  and  Mr. 
Phillips  withdrew  from  the  hall  by  the  Winter  Street  entrance, 
court  and  street  were  found  to  be  filled  by  the  baffled  rioters 
ready  for  assault.  Just  then  two  sections  of  young  men,  double 
file,  took  Mr.  Phillips,  with  a  friend  on  each  side  of  him,  be 
tween  them,  and  escorted  him  up  Washington  Street  to  his  resi 
dence  in  entire  safety.  This  escort  was  fully  armed,  and  it 
would  have  been  a  sad  day  for  the  mob  had  Mr.  Phillips  been 
assaulted.  For  nearly  a  week  after,  a  portion  of  these  young 
men  remained  on  duty  at  Mr.  Phillips's  house  for  his  protec 
tion."  * 

In  a  letter  to  Miss  Mary  Grew  Mr.  Phillips  thus 
refers  to  these  experiences  : 

"  I  hardly  know  what  to  say  to  you  about  our  mob.  It  was 
not  the  murderous  mob  of  1835.  Still  there  were  dangerous 
elements  in  it.  The  police  think,  and  so  do  many  friends,  that 
I  should  not  have  got  home,  Sunday,  alive,  without  the  protec 
tion  of  the  police  ;  but  though  there  were  some  fists  doubled, 
and  pistols  seen,  still  there  were  twenty  stanch  men  around  me, 
armed  ;  and  even  without  the  police,  I  think,  we  should  have 
made  our  own  way.  The  Monday  evening  meeting,  I  regretted 
to  hold  where  we  were  compelled  to,  as  it  left  the  colored  people 
exposed  all  night  to  the  remains  of  the  mob.  But  we  are  all 
safe,  and  I  suppose  nothing  more  will  trouble  us  till  our  annual 
meeting  in  January.  They  boast,  in  State  Street,  that  we  shall 
not  hold  any  Anti-Slavery  meetings  this  winter.  We'll  see. 

"You  know  the  owners  of  Music  Hall  refused  us  the  hall. 
The  Fraternity  offered  bonds  for  $50,000  ;  then  the  trustees  said 
they  would  consent  if  another  speaker  could  be  substituted. 
Had  our  mayor  been  here  we  should  not  have  got  the  hall.  But 
Heaven  took  him  to  Washington.  So  Mr.  Clapp  was  acting 
mayor.  He  behaved  nobly  and  secured,  probably,  the  casting 
vote  which,  at  half-past  eleven  P.M.,  obtained  for  us  the  hall. 

"  The  Brothers  Hallowell  are  on  hand  on  all  occasions.  The 
eldest  had  my  right  arm  as  we  came  home  from  the  Music 
Hall  ;  his  brother  in  front  of  me.  The  pleasantest  item  is,  the 


M  Reminiscences  of  Charles  W.  Slack.' 


306  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

German  Turners  held  a  meeting  Sunday  evening,  and  voted 
'  to  protect  free  speech  and  free  speakers  ;'  and  a  squad  of  them 
has  watched  our  house  every  night  since,  though  I  never  heard 
of  it  till  days  after.  That's  worth  being  mobbed  for.  There's 
some  good  in  the  world,  spite  of  original  sin."  ! 

On  the  day  previous  to  the  scene  in  Music  Hall, 
South  Carolina  seceded.  The  other  Gulf  States 
soon  followed — seven  in  all.  The  Border  States 
lingered.  Then  the  North  went  on  its  knees  ;  of 
fered  the  South  carte  blanche  ;  would  she  only  deign 
to  name  her  terms  and  remain  in  the  Union  ?  Lib 
erty  bills  were  rescinded.  Congress  passed  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  by  the  requisite  two- 
thirds  majority,  forbidding  the  abolition  of  slavery 
and  any  interference  with  the  return  of  "  persons 
held  to  labor."  A  "  Peace  Congress"  assembled  in 
Washington  and  outran  the  Congress  that  sat  in  the 
Capitol  in  the  race  of  subserviency— "  anything, 
everything,  only  stay  !"  The  Gulf  States  had  gone. 
They  looked  on  with  amused  disdain.  The  Border 
States  still  hesitated. 

Mr.  Phillips  spent  these  three  weeks  trying  to  per 
suade  the  North  to  rise  from  its  knees  and  let  the 
South  go.  He  thought,  rightly,  that  the  attitude 
of  the  free  States  was  the  most  shameful  in  the  long 
history  of  servility.  He  welcomed  peaceable  dis 
union,  and  said  the  North  could  afford  to  pay  mill 
ions  to  be  rid  of  such  neighbors.  On  January  2oth, 
1861,  he  was  announced  to  occupy  Theodore  Parker's 
pulpit  again  and  his  subject  was  published—  '  Dis 
union  !"  On  the  iQth  inst.  Garrison  penned  these 
lines  to  Oliver  Johnson,  in  New  York  City  : 


1  Letter  to  Miss  Grew  (MS.). 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  307 

"  It  will  be  a  fortnight,  to-morrow,  since  I  have  been  out-of- 
doors.  It  is  on  this  account  I  have  not  replied  to  your  letter 
giving  me  an  extract  of  a  plot  in  embryo  for  a  murderous  assault 
upon  our  dear  and  noble  friend,  Wendell  Phillips.  I  thought  it 
best,  on  the  whole,  to  say  nothing  to  him  about  it  ;  but  that  his 
precious  life  is  in  very  great  danger,  in  consequence  of  the 
malignity  felt  and  expressed  against  him  in  this  city  since  the 
John  Brown  meeting,  there  is  no  doubt  among  us.  Hence,  we 
are  quite  sure  of  a  mobocratic  outbreak  at  our  annual  meeting 
on  Thursday  and  Friday  next  ;  and,  though  some  of  us  may  be 
exposed  to  personal  violence,  Phillips  will  doubtless  be  the  object 
of  special  vengeance.  The  new  mayor,  Wightman,  is  bitterly 
opposed  to  us,  refuses  to  give  us  any  protection,  and  says  if 
there  is  any  disturbance  he  will  arrest  our  speakers,  together 
with  the  trustees  of  Tremont  Temple  !  What  a  villain  !  I 
should  not  wonder  if  blood  should  be  shed  on  the  occasion,  for 
there  will  be  a  resolute  body  of  men  present,  determined  to  main 
tain  liberty  of  speech.  Whether  an  attempt  will  be  made  to 
break  up  the  Anti-Slavery  Festival  at  Music  Hall,  on  Wednes 
day  evening,  remains  to  be  seen.  But  all  will  work  well  in  the 
end. 

"  Phillips  is  to  speak  at  the  Music  Hall  to-morrow  forenoon, 
before  Mr.  Parker's  congregation,  and  another  violent  demon 
stration  is  anticipated.  Mayor  Wightman  refuses  to  order  the 
police  to  be  present  to  preserve  order.  This  makes  the  per 
sonal  peril  of  Phillips  greater  than  it  was  before."  l 

Mr.  Phillips  spoke,  and  never  more  calmly,  never 
more  powerfully.  The  mob,  as  before,  occupied  the 
hall,  and  the  approaches  to  it.5  And,  as  before,  he 
was  escorted  to  his  home  by  a  self-appointed  body 
guard.3 

On  the  24th  inst,  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Mas 
sachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society  (referred  to  as  im 
pending  by  Mr.  Garrison  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  John- 


1  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison, "'vol.  iv.,  p.  3. 

2  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  by  Wendell  Phillips,   p.  343.  3  Ib. 


308  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

son)  was  held.  At  least  one  session  was  held.  Of 
this  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria  Child  has  left  a  graphic  pen- 
and-ink  sketch.  Addressing  a  friend,  she  writes  : 

"  I  would  rather  have  given  fifty  dollars  than  attend  the  meet 
ing,  but  conscience  told  me  it  was  a  duty.  I  was  excited  and 
anxious,  not  for  myself,  but  for  Wendell  Phillips.  Hour  after 
hour  of  the  night  I'  heard  the  clock  strike,  while  visions  were 
passing  through  my  mind  of  that  noble  head  assailed  by  mur 
derous  hands,  and  I  obliged  to  stand  by  without  the  power  to 
save  him. 

"  I  went  very  early  in  the  morning,  and  entered  the  Tremont 
Temple  by  a  private  labyrinthine  passage.  There  I  found  a 
company  of  young  men,  a  portion  of  the  self-constituted  body 
guard  of  Mr.  Phillips.  They  looked  calm,  but  resolute  and 
stern.  I  knew  they  were  all  armed,  as  well  as  hundreds  of 
others;  but  their  weapons  were  not  visible.  The  women  friends 
came  in  gradually  by  the  same  private  passage.  It  was  a  sol 
emn  gathering,  I  assure  you  ;  for  though  there  was  a  pledge 
not  to  use  weapons  unless  Mr.  Phillips  or  some  other  Anti- 
Slavery  speaker  was  personally  in  danger,  still  nobody  could 
foresee  what  might  happen.  The  meeting  opened  well.  The 
Anti-Slavery  sentiment  was  there  in  strong  force,  but  soon  the 
mob  began  to  yell  from  the  galleries.  They  came  tumbling  in 
by  hundreds.  The  papers  will  tell  you  of  their  goings-on.  Such 
yelling,  screeching,  stamping,  and  bellowing  I  never  heard.  It 
was  a  full  realization  of  the  old  phrase,  '  All  hell  broke  loose.' 

"  Mr.  Phillips  stood  on  the  front  of  the  platform  for  a  full 
hour,  trying  to  be  heard  whenever  the  storm  lulled  a  little. 
They  cried,  '  Throw  him  out  ! '  '  Throw  a  brickbat  at  him  ! ' 
'  Your  house  is  afire  ;  don't  you  know  your  house  is  afire  ? 
Go  put  out  your  house.'  Then  they'd  sing,  with  various  bellow 
ing  and  shrieking  accompaniments,  '  Tell  John  Andrew,  tell 
John  Andrew,  John  Brown's  dead  ! '  I  should  think  there  were 
four  or  five  hundred  of  them.  At  one  time  they  all  rose  up, 
many  of  them  clattered  down-stairs,  and  there  nas  a  surging 
forward  toward  the  platform.  My  heart  beat  so  fast  I  could 
hear  it  ;  for  I  did  not  then  know  how  Mr.  Phillips's  armed  friends 
were  stationed  at  every  door,  and  in  the  middle  of  every  aisle. 
They  formed  a  firm  wall,  which  the  mob  could  not  pass.  At 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  309 

last  it  was  announced  that  the  police  were  coming.  I  saw  and 
heard  nothing  of  them,  but  there  was  a  lull.  Mr.  Phillips  tried 
to  speak,  but  his  voice  was  again  drowned.  Then,  by  a  clever 
stroke  of  management,  he  stooped  forward,  and  addressed  his 
speech  to  the  reporters  stationed  directly  below  him.  This  tan 
talized  the  mob  ;  and  they  began  to  call  out,  '  Speak  louder  ! 
We  want  to  hear  what  you're  saying  ;'  whereupon  he  raised  his 
voice,  and  for  half  an  hour  he  seemed  to  hold  them  in  the  hol 
low  of  his  hand.  But  as  soon  as  he  sat  down,  they  began  to  yell 
and  sing  again,  to  prevent  any  more  speaking."  l 

In  the  afternoon  the  mayor  once  more  interfered, 
and  by  his  command  the  hall  was  not  opened  at 
night.2 

Was  Mr.  Phillips  silenced  ?  Oh,  no  !  On  Feb 
ruary  i /th,  he  re-entered  Parker's  pulpit  and  spoke 
on  "  Progress,"  still  serenely,  still  uncompromis 
ingly,  still  with  the  mob  for  an  audience,  and  a  pha 
lanx  of  armed  friends  for  a  rampart.  While  he  was 
speaking  a  string  of  fifty  or  more  rioters  pushed  into 
the  hall  and  surged  toward  the  desk.  They  were 
soon  stayed  by  the  protecting  cordon  in  front  of  the 
orator.  Here  they  stood  and  listened,  and  listening 
were  touched,  so  that  at  last  they  broke  with  the 
rest  of  the  audience  into  wild  applause  !  Phillips 
was  always  proud  of  this  proof  of  his  persuasive 
powers — rioters  transformed  into  sympathizers  ! 


"  Letters  of  Lydia  Maria  Child,"  pp.  147.  149. 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxi.,  p.  17.  What  Mr.  Phillips  said  to  the  re 
porters  was  :  "  While  I  speak  to  these  pencils,  I  speak  to  a  million  of 
men.  What,  then,  are  those  boys  ?  We  have  got  the  press  of  the 
country  in  our  hands.  Whether  they  like  us  or  not,  they  know  that 
our  speeches  sell  their  papers-  With  five  newspapers  we  may  defy 
five  hundred  boys.  .  .  .  My  voice  is  beaten  by  theirs,  but  they  can 
not  beat  types.  All  hail  and  glory  to  Faust,  who  invented  printing, 
for  he  made  mobs  impossible  .'"  Ib. 


310  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

His  family  physician  and  firm  ally,  Dr.  David  Thayer, 
who  was  present,  relates  that  as  the  band  entered, 
one  of  them  addressed  a  bystander,  supposing  him 
to  be  a  malcontent,  and  pulling  a  noosed  rope  half 
out  of  his  overcoat  pocket,  said  in  a  whisper,  "  See  ! 
we  are  going  to  snake  him  out  and  hang  him  with 
this  on  the  Common."  The  person  addressed  drew 
out  a  revolver,  pushed  it  into  the  eyes  of  the  ruffian, 
and  cried  :  "  God  d — n  you,  if  you  don't  get  out  of 
this  hall,  I'll  blow  your  brains  out  !"  He  got  out  in 
a  hurry.  He  had  mistaken  his  man.  Dr.  Thayer 
said  he  thought  it  justifiable  profanity.1  When  the 
address  was  ended,  the  brave  doctor  spirited  Mr. 
Phillips  into  his  waiting  buggy,  and  drove  him  home 
at  a  two-forty  pace — the  city  ordinance  to  the  con 
trary,  notwithstanding.  For  days,  that  house  was 
an  arsenal.  Friends  encamped  within,  well  armed. 
The  police  stood  without,  while  the  mob  transformed 
the  vicinity  into  a  pandemonium. 

"  If  those  fellows  had  broken  in,  would  you  have 
shot  them,  Mr.  Phillips  ?"  asked  a  lady  friend. 

"  Yes,"  was  the  quiet  answer,- — "  just  as  I  would 
shoot  a  mad  dog  or  a  wild  bull  !" 

"  During  all  this  time,"  remarks  Mr.  T.  W.  Hig- 
ginson,  an  eye-witness,  "  there  was  something  pecul 
iarly  striking  and  characteristic  in  his  demeanor. 
There  was  absolutely  nothing  of  bull-dog  combative- 
ness  ;  but  a  careless,  buoyant,  almost  patrician  air, 
as  if  nothing  in  the  way  of  mob- violence  were  worth 
considering,  and  all  the  threats  of  opponents  were 
simply  beneath  contempt.  He  seemed  like  some 


1  The  writer  had  this  from  Dr.  Thayer's  own  lips. 
3  Told  by  Mrs.  Eleanor  F.  Crosby. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  311 

English  Jacobite  nobleman  on  the  scaffold,  carelessly 
taking  snuff,  and  kissing  his  hand  to  the  crowd, 
before  laying  his  head  upon  the  block." 

So  passed,  for  Mr.  Phillips,  the  winter  of  seces 
sion.  He  ran  a  gauntlet  of  mobs  three  months  long 
—unhurt.  This  was  God's  way  of  vindicating  free 
speech  by  the  freest  speaker  in  the  world. 


XXIV. 

UNDER  THE   FLAG. 

DURING  the  months  whose  history  has  just  been 
traced  as  it  was  localized  in  the  experience  of  Mr. 
Phillips,  the  country  was  vexed  and  tormented,  rent 
and  crazed,  like  the  demoniac  in  the  Scriptures,  by 
devils.  The  Gulf  States  gone  ;  the  Border  States 
still  balancing-  ;  party  feeling  so  belligerent  that  men 
and  women  of  opposite  politics  talked  bullets  when 
they  met  ;  the  press  voicing  and  increasing  the  prev 
alent  perplexity  and  animosity  ;  business  demoral 
ized  ;  a  horrible  uncertainty,  more  appalling  than 
the  most  dreadful  assurance,  populating  the  conti 
nent  with  rumors, — but  how  describe  the  indescrib 
able  ? 

Out  of  this  chaos  certain  facts  stalked  into  the  con 
sciousness  of  the  North.  It  was  known  that  the  dis 
graceful  administration  of  James  Buchanan  was 
about  to  end.  It  was  the  avowed  intention  of  the 
lingering  Catilines  of  secession  to  effect  a  coup  d'etat 
and  take  possession  of  the  Capital.  It  was  openly 
asserted  that  Abraham  Lincoln  should  never  be  in 
augurated.  The  South  was  united.  The  North- 
it  was  Ishmael  multiplied  into  twenty  million. 

Time  passed.  The  confusion  deepened.  The 
President-elect  stole  disguised  into  Washington. 
Buchanan  left  the  White  House.  Lincoln  entered 
it  and  assumed  the  government.  General  Winfield 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  313 

Scott,  faithful  among  the  faithless,  held  the  Capital 
in  the  name  of  the  nation.  The  new  Executive  de 
livered  his  inaugural — conciliatory  in  tone,  yet  self- 
possessed  and  courageous  ;  offering  to  enforce  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and  recommending  the  States 
to  ratify  the  Constitutional  amendment  just  passed 
by  Congress,  making  the  abolition  of  slavery  impos 
sible  ;  but  affirming  the  purpose  to  uphold  and  vin 
dicate  the  supreme  authority  of  the  nation. 

This  was  the  South's  opportunity.  God  inter 
vened  and  made  the  slave-holders  deaf.  He  meant 
to  destroy  the  monster  iniquity.  The  secessionists 
were  convinced  that  the  North  would  not  fight — that 
it  could  not.  For  was  it  not  hopelessly  divided  ? 
Did  not  Jefferson  Davis  have  in  his  pocket  a  letter 
from  ex- President  Franklin  Pierce,  in  which  the  re 
creant  New  Englander  declared  that  if  there  should 
be  war  the  fighting  would  not  be  in  the  South  but 
in  the  North  ?  1  Was  there  not  every  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  the  Pro-Slavery  sympathizers  here  would 
find  occupation  for  Mr.  Lincoln  at  home,  should  he 
move  toward  coercion  ?  Moreover,  the  treasury — 
had  not  that  been  emptied  by  the  pilferers  who  held 
office  for  this  purpose  under  the  late  Administration  ? 
The  navy — was  not  that  artfully  scattered  in  distant 
seas  ?  The  army — was  not  that  reduced  to  a  cor 
poral's  guard  ?  Had  not  the  arsenals  been  despoiled 
of  arms,  which  the  Confederates  now  handled  ? 
What  could  the  President  do,  if  he  would  ?  Why, 
he  had  been  robbed  of  all  means  precisely  with  a 
view  to  this  emergency. 

The  secessionists  laughed  at   Lincoln's  overtures. 


1  Greeley's  "  American  Conflict,"  vol.  i.,  p.  513. 


3  H  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Suppose  they  returned,  how  could  legislation  muz 
zle  Northern  sentiment  ?  Had  they  not  tried  that 
for  fifty  years  ?  It  was  the  type  of  society  in  the 
North  that  they  dreaded.  It  was  from  this  that  they 
wished  to  separate  themselves.  One  thing-,  how 
ever,  gave  them  anxiety.  They  desired  the  adher 
ence  of  the  Border  States  to  the  Confederacy.  To 
secure  this  they  decided  to  "  fire  the  Southern 
heart" — never  imagining  the  shot  which  did  that 
would  also  fire  the  heart  of  the  North.  This  was 
their  supreme,  but  natural,  blunder.  Had  the  flag 
been  left  unassailed  there  would  have  been  a  peace 
able  dissolution  of  the  Union.  God  again  interfered. 

On  April  I2th,  1861,  Fort  Sumter  was  bombarded  ! 

The  result  was  unimaginable.  It  did,  indeed,  have 
the  expected  effect  in  the  Border  States,  most  of 
which  made  haste  to  secede. 

But  at  the  North,  instead  of  being  a  signal  for  a  Pro- 
Slavery  insurrection,  it  stirred  a  protest  of  indignant 
patriotism  from  the  very  graveyards.  There  was 
"  such  an  uprising  in  every  city,  town,  and  hamlet, 
without  distinction  of  sect  or  party,  as  to  seem," 
wrote  Mr.  Garrison,  "  like  a  general  resurrection  of 
the  dead."  In  the  first  fierce  moment  of  arousal, 
all  talk  of  compromise  ceased.  The  empty  exchequer 
was  filled  by  a  national  loan.  A  navy  was  extem 
porized,  as  if  by  magic.  Canada  and  Europe  were 
ransacked  for  arms.  And  in  response  to  the  Presi 
dent's  call  for  volunteers  to  suppress  the  rebellion, 
every  farm,  every  workshop,  every  counting-room, 
every  fireside  transformed  citizens  into  soldiers  and 
made  Washington  a  camp. 


Vide  Liberator^  vol.  xxxi.,  p.  66. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  315 

In  a  moment  the  whole  situation  changed.  With 
corresponding  rapidity,  the  attitude  of  individuals 
altered.  Senator  Douglas  ceased  to  be  a  dough-face 
and  became  a  patriot.  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  up  to 
this  moment  a  Northern  man  with  Southern  prin 
ciples,  experienced  a  change  of  heart  and  was  born 
again.  Garrison  "  remembered  to  forget"  that  he 
was  a  non-resistant  and  made  the  Liberator  over  from 
a  Quaker  gun  into  a  columbiad. 

Mr.  Phillips  veered  with  the  rest.  He  had  been  a 
Disunionist  for  freedom's  sake  since  1843.  All 
winter  he  had  been  advising  the  North  to  let  the 
South  go  in  peace.  Now  he,  too,  favored  war  and 
wished  to  save  the  Union.  Was  he  not  inconsis 
tent  ?  No,  he  changed,  not  his  principles,  but  his 
methods.  He  had  been  aiming  at — what  ?  The 
emancipation  of  the  negro  race  and  the  liberation  of 
the  North  from  slave-holding  domination.  He  now 
saw,  with  intuitive  quickness,  that  the  war  for  the 
Union  was  the  Providential  way  of  attaining  both 
objects.  As  slavery  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  differ 
ence  between  the  sections,  it  was  clear  that  slavery 
must  be  abolished  in  order  to  final  union.  Two 
ideas,  therefore,  took  possession  of  him  now  and 
shaped  his  course,  viz.,  free  the  blacks  as  a  war 
measure,  and  then  enfranchise  them.  This  policy 
he  urged  throughout  the  war  and  throughout  the 
period  of  reconstruction,  and  finally  harvested  it  in 
the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  and  in  the  three 
amendments  to  the  Constitution.  To  those  who 
criticised  his  present  position  and  accused  him  of 
inconsistency  his  triumphant  reply  was  : 

"  People  may  say  this  is  strange  language  for  me, — a  Dis 
unionist.  Well,  I  was  a  Disunionist,  sincerely,  for  twenty  years. 


316  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

I  did  hate  the  Union,  when  union  meant  lies  in  the  pulpit  and 
mobs  in  the  streets,  when  union  meant  makirg  white  men  hypo 
crites  and  black  men  slaves.  {Cheers  )  I  did  prefer  purity  to 
peace, — I  acknowledge  it.  The  child  of  six  generations  of  Puri 
tans,  knowing  well  the  value  of  union,  I  did  prefer  disunion  to 
being  the  accomplice  of  tyrants.  But  now — when  I  see  what  the 
Union  must  mean  in  order  to  last,  when  1  see  that  you  cannot 
have  union  without  meaning  justice,  and  when  I  see  twenty  mill 
ions  of  people,  with  a  current  as  swift  and  as  inevitable  as 
Niagara,  determined  that  this  Union  shall  mean  justice,  why 
should  I  object  to  it  ?  I  endeavored  honestly,  and  am  not 
ashamed  of  it,  to  take  nineteen  States  out  of  this  Union,  and  con 
secrate  them  to  liberty,  and  twenty  millions  of  people  answer 
me  back,  '  We  like  your  motto,  only  we  mean  to  keep  thirty- 
four  States  under  it.'  Do  you  suppose  that  I  am  not  Yankee 
enough  to  buy  union  when  I  can  have  it  at  a  fair  price  ?"  1 

Learning  of  Mr.  Phillips's  change  of  views,  and 
on  fire  themselves  with  the  enthusiasm  of  the  hour, 
Theodore  Parker's  society  invited  the  orator  to 
occupy  their  desk  on  Sunday,  April  2ist,  nine  days 
after  the  firing  of  "  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 

"  They  dressed  their  pulpit,"  remarks  one  of  their  number, 
"  in  the  national  colors.  Over  the  occupant's  head  was  an  arch 
of  bunting,  decked  with  laurel  and  evergreen.  Thousands 
crowded  into  the  hall.  Mr.  Phillips  was  promptly  on  hand,  vuth 
— for  the  first  time  in  his  public  career — an  audience  wholly  in 
sympathy  with  his  expected  speech.  The  atmosphere  was 
charged  with  patriotism.  Men's  faces,  especially  those  of  the 
old  Abolitionists,  were  aglow  with  a  confident  hope.  Again  was 
Mr.  Phillips  equal  to  the  occasion  !  He  welcomed  the  national 
outbreak  as  the  sure  precursor  of  the  death  of  human  slavery  in 
republican  America.  He  built  up  his  magnificent  expectancy 
of  the  results  of  the  war,  sentence  by  sentence,  thrilling  the 
audience  with  grand  and  noble  aspiration.  He  yielded,  in  the 
furnace  of  his  patriotic  and  humane  warmth,  all  his  old-time  pre 
dilections,  and  stood,  disinthralled,  for  the  Union  and  the  flag, 


1  Vide  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  440. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  317 

the  Constitution  of  the  fathers,  and  its  future  interpretation  in 
the  interest  of  liberty  on  this  continent.  How  the  audience 
applauded  !  How  they  cheered  !  The  men  who  were  there  to 
mob  him  three  months  before,  now  were  his  strongest  indorsers. 
They  crowded  the  platform  to  congratulate  him  when  he  closed, 
and  joy  and  satisfaction  beamed  on  every  countenance.  It  had 
been  a  Pentecostal  season  ;  and  the  divine  outflow  of  humanity, 
justice,  and  the  rights  of  man,  had  baptized  every  one  of  that 
immense  throng  !  It  required  no  phalanx  of  armed  men  to  es 
cort  Mr.  Phillips  home  that  day  ;  for  he  was  almost,  figuratively, 
borne  in  the  arms  of  a  grateful  citizenship  to  his  modest 
abode  !"  ' 

From  this  famous  speech  we  extract  a  few  sen 
tences  to  indicate  its  trend  : 

"  All  winter  long,  I  have  acted  with  that  party  which  cried  for 
peace.  The  Anti-Slavery  enterprise  to  which  I  belong  started 
with  peace  written  on  its  banners.  We  imagined  that  the  age 
of  bullets  was  over  ;  that  the  age  of  ideas  had  come  ;  that  thirty 
millions  of  people  were  able  to  take  a  great  question,  and  decide 
it  by  the  conflict  of  opinions  ;  that,  without  letting  the  ship  of 
state  founder,  we  could  lift  four  millions  of  men  into  liberty  and 
justice.  We  thought  that  if  your  statesmen  would  throw  away 
personal  ambition  and  party  watchwords,  and  devote  themselves 
to  the  great  issue,  this  might  be  accomplished.  To  a  certain 
extent  it  has  been.  The  North  has  answered  to  the  call.  Year 
after  year,  event  by  event,  had  indicated  the  rising  education  of 
the  people, — the  readiness  for  a  higher  moral  life,  the  calm,  self- 
poised  confidence  in  our  own  convictions  that  patiently  waits — 
like  the  master  for  a  pupil — for  a  neighbor's  conversion.  The 
North  has  responded  to  the  call  of  that  peaceful,  moral,  intellect 
ual  agitation  which  the  Anti-Slavery  idea  has  initiated.  Our  mis 
take,  if  any,  has  been  that  we  counted  too  much  on  the  intelli 
gence  of  the  masses,  on  the  honesty  and  wisdom  of  statesmen  as 
a  class.  Perhaps  we  did  not  give  weight  enough  to  the  fact  we 
saw,  that  this  nation  is  made  up  of  different  ages  ;  not  homo 
geneous,  but  a  mixed  mass  of  different  centuries.  The  North 
thinks, — can  appreciate  argument, — is  the  nineteenth  century, 


1  Reminiscences  of  Charles  W.  Slack. 


318  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

— hardly  any  struggle  left  in  it  but  that  between  the  working- 
class  and  the  money-kings.  The  South  dreams—it  is  the  thir- 
teenth.and  fourteenth  century,— baron  and  serf, — noble  and  slave. 
Jack  Cade  and  Wat  Tyler  loom  over  its  horizon,  and  the  serf, 
rising,  calls  for  another  Thierry  to  record  his  struggle.  Thete 
the  fagot  still  burns  which  the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne  called, 
ages  ago,  '  the  best  light  to  guide  the  erring.'  There  men  are 
tortured  for  opinions,  the  only  punishment  the  Jesuits  were  will 
ing  their  pupils  should  look  on.  This  is,  perhaps,  too  flattering 
a  picture  of  the  South.  Better  call  her,  as  Sumner  does,  '  the 
Barbarous  States.'  Our  struggle,  therefore,  is  between  barbar 
ism  and  civilization.  Such  can  only  be  settled  by  arms.  (Pro 
longed  cheering.}  The  Government  has  waited  until  its  best 
friends  almost  suspected  its  courage  or  its  integrity  ;  but  the 
cannon  shot  against  Fort  Sumter  has  opened  the  only  door  out 
of  this  hour.  There  were  but  two.  One  was  compromise  ;  the 
other  was  battle.  The  integrity  of  the  North  closed  the  first  ; 
the  generous  forbearance  of  nineteen  States  closed  the  other. 
The  South  opened  this  with  cannon-shot,  and  Lincoln  shows 
himself  at  the  door.  (Prolonged  and  enthusiastic  cheering.} 
The  war,  then,  is  not  aggressive,  but  in  self-defence,  and  Wash 
ington  has  become  the  Thermopylse  of  liberty  and  justice.  (Ap 
plause.}  Rather  than  surrender  that  Capital,  cover  every 
square  foot  of  it  with  a  living  body  (loud  cheers}  ;  crowd  it  with 
a  million  of  men,  and  empty  every  bank  vault  at  the  North  to 
pay  the  cost.  (Renewed  cheering.}  Teach  the  world  once  for 
all,  that  North  America  belongs  to  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and 
under  them  no  man  shall  wear  a  chain.  (Enthusiastic  cheer 
ing.}  In  the  whole  of  this  conflict,  I  have  looked  only  at  liberty, 
— only  at  the  slave.  Perry  entered  the  battle  of  the  Lakes  with 
4  Don't  give  up  the  ship  !  '  floating  from  the  masthead  of  the 
'  Lawrence.'  When  with  his  fighting  flag  he  left  her  crippled, 
heading  north,  and,  mounting  the  deck  of  the  Niagara,  turned 
her  bows  due  west,  he  did  all  for  one  and  the  same  purpose, — 
to  rake  the  decks  of  his  foe.  Steer  north  or  west,  acknowledge 
secession  or  cannonade  it,  I  care  not  which  ;  but  '  proclaim  lib 
erty  throughout  all  the  land  unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof.'  ' 
(Loud  cheers.}* 


11  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  398. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  319 

In  pursuance  of  his  purpose  to  support  the  Admin 
istration  and  educate  public  opinion,  Mr.  Phillips 
entered  heart  and  soul  into  a  personal  canvass  of  the 
country  and  made  himself  ubiquitous  during  the  re 
mainder  of  1861.  In  December  he  visited  New  York 
and  spoke  to  an  audience  that  recalled  the  one  in 
Music  Hall  on  April  2ist.  His  aim  was  to  strike 
into  the  inmost  conscience  of  the  country  the  essen 
tial  nature  of  the  strife,  and  the  hopelessness  of  com 
promise.  Said  he  : 

41  It  is  the  aristocratic  element  which  survived  the  Constitution, 
which  our  fathers  thought  could  be  safely  left  under  it,  and  the  \ 
South  to-day  is  force.d  into  this  war  by  the  natural  growth  of  the  r 
antagonistic  principle.  You  may  pledge  whatever  submission 
and  patience  of  Southern  institutions  you  please,  it  is  not  enough. 
South  Carolina,  said  to  Massachusetts,  in  1833,  when  Edward 
Everett  was  Governor,  '  Abolish  free  speech, — it  is  a  nuisance.' 
She  is  right, — from  her  standpoint  it  is.  {Laughter.}  That  is, 
it  is  not  possible  to  preserve  the  quiet  of  South  Carolina  con 
sistently  with  free  speech  ;  but  you  know  the  story  Sir  Walter 
Scott  told  of  the  Scotch  laird,  who  said  to  his  old  butler,  '  Jock, 
you  and  I  can't  live  under  this  roof.'  '  And  where  does  your 
honor  think  of  going  ?  '  So  free  speech  says  to  South  Carolina 
to-day.  .  Now  I  say  you  may  pledge,  compromise,  guarantee 
what  you  please.  The  South  well  knows  that  is  not  your  pur 
pose, — it  is  your  character  she  dreads.  It  is  the  nature  of  North 
ern  institutions,  the  perilous  freedom  of  discussion,  the  flavor  of 
our  ideas,  the  sight  of  our  growth,  the  very  neighborhood  of 
such  States,  that  constitutes  the  danger.  It  is  like  two  vases 
launched  on  the  stormy  sea.  The  iron  said  to  the  crockery,  '  I 
won't  come  near  you.'  '  Thank  you,'  said  the  weaker  vessel  ; 
4  there  is  just  as  much  danger  in  my  coming  near  you.'  This 
the  South  feels  ;  hence  her  determination  ;  hence,  indeed,  the  im 
perious  necessity  that  she  should  rule  and  shape  our  Government, 
or  of  sailing  out  of  it. 

"  And  the  struggle  is  between  these  two  ideas.  Our  fathers, 
as  I  said,  thought  they  could  safely  be  left,  one  to  outgrow  the 
other.  They  took  gunpowder  and  a  lighted  match,  forced  them 


320  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

into  a  stalwart  cannon,  screwed  down  the  muzzle,  and  thought 
they  could  secure  peace.  But  it  has  resulted  differently  ;  their 
cannon  has  exploded,  and  we  stand  among  the  fragments. 

"  Now  some  Republicans  and  some  Democrats — not  Butler 
and  Bryant  and  Cochrane  and  Cameron,  not  Boutwell  and  Ban 
croft  and  Dickinson,  and  others — but  the  old  set — the  old  set 
say  to  the  Republicans,  '  Lay  the  pieces  carefully  together  in 
their  places  ;  put  the  gunpowder  and  the  match  in  again,  say  the 
Constitution  backward  instead  of  your  prayers,  and  there  will 
never  be  another  rebellion  !  '  I  doubt  it.  It  seems  to  me  that 
like  causes  will  produce  like  effects."  1 

In  a  letter  which  Mr.  Garrison  wrote  to  Oliver 
Johnson,  the  editor  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  in 
New  York  City,  there  is  an  interesting  reference  to 
this  speech,  and  an  amusing  account  of  Mr.  Phillips"  s 
habits  of  revision  : 

"  You  will  see  in  the  Liberator,  this  week,  the  speech  of  Mr. 
Phillips,  delivered  in  New  York,  as  revised  and  corrected  by 
himself.  And  such  revision,  correction,  alteration,  and  addi 
tion  you  never  saw,  in  the  way  of  emendation  !  More  than  two 
columns  of  the  Tribune  s  report  were  in  type  before  Phillips 
came  into  our  office  ;  and  the  manipulation  these  required  was 
a  caution  to  all  reporters  and  type-setters  !  I  proposed  to  Phil 
lips  to  send  his  altered  '  slips  '  to  Barnum  as  a  remarkable  curi 
osity,  and  Winchell  suggested  having  them  photographed  !  But 
Phillips  desired  to  make  his  speech  as  complete  and  full  as  he 
could,  and  I  am  glad  that  you  are  to  receive  it  without  being  put 
to  any  trouble  about  it.  Doubtless,  you  will  be  requested  to 
make  some  new  alterations  ;  for  he  is  constantly  criticising  what 
he  has  spoken,  and  pays  no  regard  to  literal  accuracy.  This 
speech  will  be  eagerly  read,  as  it  touches  ably  upon  many  inter 
esting  points."  2 

Mr.  Phillips's  mind  was  critical.  His  taste  was 
exquisite.  He  never  cared  to  see  his  speeches  in 


1  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  426,  428. 

2  Quoted  in  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  39. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  321 

print.  But  if  they  were  "printed  he  wished  them 
to  appear  in  proper  shape.  Hence  his  painstaking 
revision.  Nor  did  the  amended  copy  ever  quite 
satisfy  him.  Probably,  like  the  after-dinner  speaker 
who  made  a  poor  speech  and  then  went  home,  lay 
awake  all  night  and  thought  what  a  splendid  speech 
he  might  have  made, — he  was  perplexed  by  the  very 
wealth  of  his  resources.  He  never  made  a  poor 
speech  ;  but  his  temperament  made  him  exacting 
and  fastidious. 

"  Simultaneously  with  the  efforts  above  referred  to, 
the  Agitator  now  delivered  far  and  wide  his  marvel 
lous  lecture  on  "  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,"  the  negro 
creator  of  Hayti.  The  doubt  in  these  days  touched 
the  capacity  of  the  blacks, — their  courage,  their  sus 
ceptibility  to  improvement,  their  humanity.  With 
the  San  Domingo  insurrection  for  an  illustration, 
Mr.  Phillips  showed  "  that  the  negro  blood,  instead 
of  standing  at  the  bottom  of  the  list,  is  entitled,  if 
judged  either  by  its  great  men  or  its  masses, — by  its 
courage,  its  purpose,  or  endurance,  to  a  place  as 
near  the  Anglo-Saxon  as  any  other  blood  known  in 
history."  He  had  a  genius  for  this  kind  of  por 
traiture  ;  and  he  made  Toussaint  as  familiar  to  the 
American  Lyceum  as  John  Brown  or  Washington. 
Thus  he  rendered  to  the  nation  an  immense  service, 
immediate  and  remote  ;  immediate,  because  public 
opinion  was  thus  fashioned  to  tolerate  and  soon  to 
demand  the  arming  of  the  blacks  for  the  defence  of 
the  Union  ;  remote,  because  prejudice  was  dispelled, 
a  race  was  rehabilitated  in  its  own  respect  and  in  the 
respect  of  others,  and  it  was  thus  made  easier  for 


Vide  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  468-94, 


322  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

whites  and  blacks  to  get  on  together  in  the  new  re 
lations  of  freedom. 

Considering  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  pre 
pared  and  the  limitations  incidental  to  the  Lyceum, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  claim  that  the  lecture  on 
Toussaint  stands  at  the  head  of  this  department  of 
literature.  Its  delivery  was  an  enchantment.  With 
out  this,  however,  the  critic  feels  the  subtle  charm, 
and  admires  the  wealth  of  historical  reference,  the 
keen  analysis,  the  effective  anecdote,  the  spicy  sa 
tire,  the  nice  portrayal  of  character,  the  epigramma 
tic  point,  the  varied  splendor  of  diction.  But  to 
those  who  can  only  read  it,  we  may  say,  as  ^Eschines 
did  to  his  applauding  scholars  at  Rhodes,  when  he 
had  recited  the  oration  of  Demosthenes  that  resulted 
in  his  banishment  :  "  You  admire  now  :  how  would 
your  admiration  have  been  raised  could  you  have 
heard  him  speak  it  ?" 


XXV. 

THE   STRUGGLE   OF  TWO   CIVILIZATIONS. 

WAR,  like  peace,  requires  adjustment.  It  cannot 
be  waged  successfully  without  accumulated  material 
and  practical  skill.  In  the  appeal  to  arms  the  South 
had  every  advantage  of  long  preparation,  the  choice 
of  time,  military  habits,  and  initiative.  The  North 
was  unready,  was  without  the  martial  spirit,  and 
lacked  dexterity.  For  fifty  years,  the  South  had 
been  a  camp,  and  the  North  had  been  a  workshop. 
Hence,  at  the  start,  secession  won  victories  and  the 
Union  learned  by  defeat. 

Providence  again  !  For  had  the  Rebellion  been 
quelled  within  a  year  or  two,  slavery  would  have 
survived.  Strange  to  say,  there  was  no  general 
recognition  of  the  fact  in  the  free  States  that  the 
death-grapple  was  between  hostile  systems.  The 
very  coiner  of  the  phrase,  "  irrepressible  conflict" 
was  now  in  the  Cabinet,  exerting  himself  to  patch 
up  a  peace  on  the  impossible  basis  of  the  status  quo 
ante  bellum.  And  the  author  of  the  expression,  "  A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,"  was  now 
in  the  White  House  making  every  effort  to  restore 
the  Union  with  slavery  intact.  Under  such  tutelage, 
the  word  compromise,  buried  beneath  the  passionate 
resentment  of  the  nation  when  the  flag  was  insulted, 
was  dug  up  and  revived  in  the  community.  Thus, 
President  Lincoln  assured  Horace  Greeley  that  his 


324  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

intention  was  to  save  the  Union  without  reference 
to  slavery — which  was  as  though  a  physician  should 
say  :  "  I  mean  to  cure  my  patient  without  reference 
to  the  disease." 

However  much  others,  in  and  out  of  office,  might 
doubt  and  hesitate,  the  Abolitionists  did  not.  Mr. 
Phillips  as  their  mouthpiece  never  tired  of  emphasiz 
ing  the  opportunity  and  the  necessity  of  Abolition, 
and  the  means,  in  the  war  power  of  the  Government. 
In  furtherance  of  this  object,  he  co-operated  with  a 
large  number  of  prominent  gentlemen  of  Massa 
chusetts  in  the  organization  of  an  Emancipation 
League.  Recognizing  that  slavery  was  the  "  origin 
and  mainspring  of  the  Rebellion,"  the  leaguers 
pledged  themselves  to  make  and  direct  sentiment  in 
that  channel.  On  March  loth  Mr.  Phillips  addressed 
his  colleagues.  The  President  had  just  taken  his 
first  Anti-Slavery  step — trembling  and  uncertain  as 
an  infant's  first  step  away  from  the  mother's  lap. 
It  was  a  proposition  to  compensate  the  Border 
States  for  the  gradual  emancipation  of  their  slaves 
— a  proposition  which  the  Border  States  promptly 
rejected.  Mr.  Phillips  welcomed  it  as  a  sign  of 
promise.  '  If  the  President  has  not  entered  Canaan, 
he  has  turned  his  face  Zionward,"  he  assured  his 
associates  ;  and  he  interpreted  the  message  as  say 
ing  :  "  Gentlemen  of  the  Border  States,  now  is  your 
time.  If  you  want  your  money,  take  it,  or  if  here 
after  I  should  free  your  slaves  without  paying  for 
them,  don't  say  I  did  not  offer  to  do  it."  But  God 
hardened  Pharaoh's  heart.  He  intended  not  gradual 
but  immediate  emancipation. 


Vide  Liberator^  vol.  xxxii.,  p.  42. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  325 

In  March,  1862,  the  orator  went  to  Washington — 
his  first  visit.  His  reception  was  cordial.  The  os 
tensible  object  of  his  presence  was  the  delivery  of 
two  lectures  there,  one  literary,  the  other  political. 
He  spoke  on  successive  evenings,  to  immense  audi 
ences  which  embraced  the  official  life  of  the  city. 
The  curiosity  to  hear  him  was  great,  and  he  fully 
met  all  expectations.  He  brought  himself  on  the 
platform.  It  was  Wendell  Phillips  in  his  most  inci 
sive  mood.  In  both  Houses  of  Congress  he  was  the 
recipient  of  marked  attention.  He  also  had  an  in 
terview  with  Lincoln.  "  I  told  him,"  said  he,  "  that 
if  he  started  the  experiment  of  emancipation,  and 
honestly  devoted  his  energies  to  making  it  a  fact,  he 
would  deserve  to  hold  the  helm  until  the  experiment 
was  finished — that  the  people  would  not  allow  him 
to  quit  while  it  was  trying."  1  At  the  same  time  he 
urged  Lincoln  to  dismiss  Seward  from  the  Cabinet 
as  a  hopeless  obstructive,  but  in  vain.2 

From  the  Capital,  the  lecturer  went  Westward, 
speaking  here  and  there  en  route,  always  to  crowds, 
and  usually  nowadays  to  sympathizers.  Cincinnati, 
however,  proved  to  be  a  disagreeable  exception. 
Here  a  gang  of  murderous  rioters,  getting  their  in 
spiration,  and  perhaps  their  recruits,  from  the  ad 
jacent  Kentucky,  poured  into  the  Opera  House  and 
fusilladed  the  "  d — d  Abolitionist"  with  various  mis 
siles,  odorous  and  odious,  as  he  stood  in  full  expo 
sure  on  the  stage.  Once  he  was  struck  ;  without 
noticing  it,  he  proceeded,  bland  but  satiric,  every 
sentence  a  stab,  and  extorted  the  admiration  of  the 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxiii.,  p.  no. 
*  Ib.,  pp.  19,  26. 


326  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

very  assailants  by  his  fearless  bearing.1  '  I  really 
imagined  I  was  back  in  Boston,"  commented  the 
orator,  with  a  laugh.  '  The  Cincinnati  Opera 
House  suggested  Tremont  Temple,  and  the  rats  of 
the  West  closely  resembled  those  of  the  East.  These 
and  those  alike  nibble  and  gnaw— and  run."  * 

Mr.  Phillips  made  himself  more  and  more  a  whip 
and  spur.  He  became  censor-general.  In  season 
and  out  of  season,  he  urged  Congress,  the  Cabinet, 
the  President  to  forge  and  hurl  the  only  thunderbolt 
that  could  save  the  Union,  or  make  it  worth  saving. 
From  this  standpoint,  he  criticised  men  and  meas 
ures  unsparingly.  He  loomed  like  the  embodied 
spirit  of  justice.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  riding  two  hob 
bies — that  of  compensated  emancipation  in  the  Bor 
der  States,  secessionist  at  heart  though  in  the  Union 
by  force  and  as  wedded  to  slavery  as  the  Carolinas  ; 
and  that  of  colonization.  The  honest  but  ignorant 
rail-splitter  was  twenty  years  behind  the  times.  We 
have  heard  Mr.  Phillips's  remarks  regarding  the  first 
hobby.  Touching  the  second,  he  said  : 

"  Colonize  the  blacks  !  A  man  might  as  well  colonize  his 
hands  ;  or  when  the  robber  enters  his  house,  he  might  as  well 
colonize  his  revolver.  .  .  .  We  need  the  blacks  even  more  than 
they  need  us.  They  know  every  inlet,  the  pathway  of  every 
wood,  the  whole  country  is  mapped  at  night  in  their  instinct. 
And  they  are  inevitably  on  our  side,  ready  as  well  as  skilled  to 
aid  :  the  only  element  the  South  has  which  belongs  to  the  nine 
teenth  century.  Aside  from  justice,  the  Union  needs  the 
blacks."  8 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxii.,  pp.  53,  54. 

2  Letter  to  Rev.  John  T.  Sargent,  from  Cincinnati,  March  25th,  1862 
(MS.). 

3  Vide  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  pp.  545,  546. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  327 

He  thought  the  hesitation  of  the  Administration 
arose  from  its  Whig  antecedents.  Listen  to  him  : 

44  The  Whig  party,  good  as  it  was  in  many  respects,  virtuous 
in  certain  of  its  impulses,  correct  in  some  of  its  aspirations,  had 
one  defect  :  it  had  no  confidence  in  the  people,  no  trust  in  the 
masses  ;  it  did  not  believe  in  the  conscience  and  intelligence  of 
the  million  ;  it  looked,  indeed,  upon  the  whole  world  as  a  pro 
bate  court,  in  which  education  and  wealth  were  the  guardians. 
And  so  when  our  rulers  entered  on  their  work  of  defending  the 
nation,  they  dared  not  trust  the  country  to  the  hearts  that  loved 
it."  > 

With  regard  to  the  spirit  of  the  great  battle,  he 
complimented  the  South  upon  its  sincerity,  and 
said  : 

44  No  man  can  fight  Stonewall  Jackson,  an  honest  fanatic  on 
the  side  of  slavery,  but  John  Brown,  an  equally  honest  fanatic 
on  the  side  of  freedom.  They  are  the  only  chemical  equals,  and 
will  neutralize  each  other.  You  cannot  neutralize  nitric  acid 
with  cologne  water.  William  H.  Seward  is  no  match  for  Jeffer 
son  Davis.  We  must  have  what  they  have — positive  convictions. 
Otherwise  the  elements  of  the  struggle  are  unequal."  a 

Concerning  the  problem  itself,  he  said  : 

"  We  have  not  only  an  army  to  conquer,  but  we  have  a  state 
of  mind  to  annihilate.  .  .  .  When  England  conquered  the  High 
lands,  she  held  them,— held  them  until  she  could  educate  them, 
— and  it  took  a  generation.  That  is  just  what  we  have  to  do 
with  the  South  ;  annihilate  the  old  South,  and  put  a  new  one 
there.  You  do  not  annihilate  a  thing  by  abolishing  it.  You 
must  supply  the  vacancy."  8 

He  states  and  answers  a  constant  taunt  as  follows  : 

*'  But  men  say,  4  This  is  a  mean  thing  ;  nineteen  millions  of 
people  pitched  against  eight  millions  of  Southerners,  white  men, 
and  can't  whip  them,  and  now  begin  to  call  on  the  negroes.'  Is 


1  Vide  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  529.  *  lb.,  p.  540. 

3  Ib.,  p.  544. 


328  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

that  the  right  statement  ?  Look  at  it.  What  is  the  South's 
strength  ?  She  has  eight  millions  of  whites.  She  has  the  sym 
pathy  of  foreign  powers.  She  has  the  labor  of  four  millions  of 
slaves.  What  strength  has  the  North  ?  Divided  about  equally 
— into  Republicans  and  Democrats  ;  the  Republicans  willing  to 
go  but  half  way,  and  the  Democrats  not  willing  to  go  at  all. 
(Laughter.}  It  is  like  two  men  fighting.  We  will  call  them 
Jonathan  and  Charles.  Jonathan  is  the  North.  His  right  hand, 
the  Democratic  party,  he  holds  behind  him.  His  left  hand,  his 
own  tenderness  of  conscience  uses  to  keep  the  slaves  down. 
That  is  how  he  is  to  fight.  No,  that  is  not  all.  Upon  his 
shoulders  is  strapped  the  West  Point  Academy  like  a  stone  of  a 
hundred-weight.  (Laughter.}  The  South  stands  with  both 
hands,  holding  loaded  revolvers,  and,  lest  she  should  lose  any 
time,  John  Bull  is  behind  with  additional  pistols  to  hand  the 
moment  she  needs  them.  These  are  the  two  powers  which  are 
fighting  this  battle."  l 

Some  of  these  passages  have  been  taken  from  a 
speech  delivered  by  Mr.  Phillips  in  New  York  dur 
ing"  the  anniversary  week  of  1863.  In  a  letter  to  his 
wife,  Mr.  Garrison  paints  certain  incidents  which 
concern  the  orator  : 

"  Phillips's  meeting  at  the  Institute,  Monday  evening,  was  a 
splendid  one,  and  he  acquitted  himself  in  a  way  to  gather  fresh 
laurels  for  his  brow.  His  speech  was  reported  in  full  in  the 
Tribune  of  Tuesday  morning.  At  the  conclusion  of  it,  I  was 
loudly  called  for,  but  held  back.  Then  calls  were  made  for 
Horace  Greeley,  who  came  forward  and  made  a  few  remarks  in 
his  queer-toned  voice  and  very  awkward  manner.  The  cries 
were  renewed  for  me,  and  I  said  a  few  words,  the  applause 
being  general  and  very  marked.  When  I  first  entered  the  hall, 
and  was  conducted  to  a  seat  on  the  platform  by  the  side  of 
Mayor  Opdyke,  the  audience  broke  out  into  repeated  rounds  of 
applause.  What  a  change  in  popular  sentiment  and  feeling 
from  the  old  mobocratic,  Pro-Slavery  times  !  And,  remember, 


1  Vide  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  553. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  329 

this  was  a  meeting  called  by  the  Sixteenth  Republican  Ward 
Association  !"  l 

The  utterances  of  Mr.  Phillips  in  New  York  and 
elsewhere,  expressed  the  feelings  not  only  of  the 
Abolitionists,  but  of  a  constantly-increasing  multi 
tude  of  Northern  men  and  women.  At  last,  the 
Administration  heard  and  heeded.  In  September, 
1862,  President  Lincoln  issued  his  preliminary  Proc 
lamation  of  Emancipation — the  proclamation  of 
warning.  It  gave  the  rebellious  States  a  hundred 
days  of  grace,  and  interjected  the  twin  hobbies  of 
Mr.  Lincoln, — gradual  and  compensated  emancipa 
tion  in  the  Border  States,  and  colonization.  '  It  is 
a  step  in  the  right  direction,"  said  Mr.  Garrison. 
"  A  step  !"  exclaimed  Mr.  Phillips,  "  it's  a  stride  !"  a 

On  January  1st,  1863,  secession  being  unrespon 
sive,  came  the  second  and  final  proclamation — the 
edict  of  freedom.  The  war  power  of  the  Union 
struck  off  the  shackles  of  all  slaves  held  in  the  re 
volted  States.  The  North  hailed  it  as  the  beginning 
of  the  end.  Great  public  meetings  confirmed  and 
glorified  the  event. 

As  though  God  had  been  placated  by  this  instal 
ment  of  justice,  success  began  from  this  hour  to 
accompany  the  efforts  of  the  nation.  Grant  at  Vicks- 
burg,  Meade  at  Gettysburg,  soon  afterward  dealt 
staggering  blows  to  the  Confederacy.  Abroad,  too, 
the  effect  was  wholesome.  The  English  aristocracy 
had  all  along  openly  sympathized  with  and  covertly 
aided  their  fellow  aristocrats  in  America.  They  had 
made  a  dozen  attempts  to  recognize  the  indepen 
dence  of  the  Confederacy.  Their  ships,  as  Southern 


1  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  78.      *  Ib.,  p.  62,  note. 


330  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

privateers,  had  pirated  upon  our  commerce,  and 
driven  it  from  the  high  seas.  The  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  is  entitled  to  praise,  which  it  has 
never  received,  on  account  of  its  successful  endeav 
ors,  through  British  agents,  to  enlighten  England 
on  American  affairs.  George  Thompson,  in  the  pay 
of  this  body,  had  been  exerting  himself  from  the 
outset  in  this  good  work  and  with  the  best  results.1 
An  influential  "  Emancipation  Society"  had  been  or 
ganized  in  London  in  the  interest  of  the  Union, 
with  Thompson  as  its  animating  spirit,  and  his  son- 
in-law,  F.  W.  Chesson,  as  its  executive.  Among  its 
members  were  John  Stuart  Mill,  John  Bright,  Rich 
ard  Cobden,  Goldwin  Smith,  Justin  McCarthy, 
Thomas  Hughes,  Professor  Cairnes,  Herbert  Spen 
cer,  Baptist  Noel,  Newman  Hall— the  brainiest  and 
worthiest  leaders  of  British  thought  and  life.  Every 
one  of  these,  and  a  host  of  others,  led  by  the  tireless 
and  eloquent  Thompson,  gave  weeks  and  months  of 
work  in  behalf  of  the  Union.  If  Lancashire  suffered 
and  made  no  sign,  if  the  arrogant  classes  were  check 
mated  by  the  alert  masses,  if  England  kept  hands 
off  in  the  struggle  over  here, — we  owe  it  to  these 
heroes.  Are  their  names  not 


"  On  fame's  eternal  bead-roll  worthy  to  be  filed 


George  Thompson  tried  to  persuade  Gerrit  Smit'h 
and  Wendell  Phillips  to  proceed  to  England  and  co 
operate  there  in  the  creation  and  direction  of  public 
opinion.  Mr.  Phillips  was  inclined  to  go  ;  but  was 
held  at  home  by  his  wife's  infirmities.3  Subse- 


1  i4  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  29,  note  ;  and  pp.  65,  68, 
and  71-77- 

2  Letter  to  Gerrit  Smith,  in  '63  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  331 

quently  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  being  abroad  for  rest, 
found  what  he  sought  in  endless  battles. with  un 
friendly  audiences,  in  which  he  won  new  fame  for 
himself,  and  got  ample  compensation  in  the  magnifi 
cent  service  rendered  to  his  country.  When  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  reached  Great  Britain, 
its  reception  there  was  only  less  enthusiastic  than 
here.  "  It  would  have  done  you  good,"  wrote  Mr. 
Chesson  to  an  American  friend,  "  if  you  had  heard 
Baptist  Noel's  speech,  or  attended  the  great  meeting 
of  the  working-classes  which  we  held  on  December 
3ist — the  eve  of  freedom.  Newman  Hall's  speech 
on  this  occasion  was  one  of  the  best  I  ever  listened 
to.  He  stated,  in  the  fairest  manner,  every  con 
ceivable  argument  which  had  been  urged  in  favor  of 
the  Slave  Confederacy,  or  against  the  policy  of  the 
Federal  Government,  and  then  replied  to  them  seri 
atim,  demolishing  every  sophistry  and  gibbeting 
every  falsehood,  until  the  slavocracy  had  really  not 
a  rag  left  wherewith  to  conceal  the  revolting  defects 
of  their  odious  cause."  l 

The  proclamation,  followed  as  it  was  by  the  tre 
mendous  victories  of  Grant  and  Meade,  gave  the 
projected  English  intervention  the  coup  de  grace. 

Already  triumphant  in  anticipation,  but  without 
relaxing  the  strain  of  unceasing  exertion,  Mr.  Phil 
lips  now  aided  the  formation  of  colored  regiments  in 
Massachusetts.  Two  of  these  were  recruited  in  the 
spring  of  1863,  and  were  speedily  supplied  with  the 
maximum  number  of  men.  These  were  the  Fifty- 
fourth  and  the  Fifty-fifth  regiments.  Robert  G. 
Shaw  was  the  colonel  of  one,  and  Edward  N.  Hal- 


1  Vide  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  pp.  72,  73. 


332  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

lowell  was  the  lieutenant-colonel  of  the  other  ;  both 
warm  personal  friends  of  the  orator.  The  Fifty- 
fourth  Massachusetts  Regiment  was  the  first  body 
of  colored  soldiers  despatched  from  the  North.  Mr. 
Phillips  with  Frederick  Douglass  and  Garrison  had 
often  visited  their  camp  and  spoken  words  of  cheer. 
When,  on  May  28th,  1863,  the  blacks  marched 
proudly  through  the  streets  of  Boston  to  embark  for 
the  front,  his  heart  swelled,  and  as  he  stood  in  the 
mighty  throng  that  lined  the  sidewalks  to  cheer  their 
departure,  startling  memories  significant  of  yet  more 
stupendous  changes  made  a  tumult  in  his  breast.1 
Others  of  the -on-looking  Abolitionists  shared  in  his 
emotion.  '  You  remember,"  wrote  Lydia  Maria 
Child,  addressing  another  of  the  old  guard,  "  Charles 
Sprague's  description  of  scenes  he  witnessed  from  a 
window  near  State  Street  ?  First,  Garrison  dragged 
through  the  streets  by  a  mob  ;  second,  Burns  car 
ried  back  to  slavery  by  United  States  troops,  through 
the  same  street  ;  third,  a  black  regiment,  marching 
down  the  same  street,  to  the  tune  of  '  John  Brown,' 
to  join  the  United  States  Army  for  the  emancipation 
of  their  race.  What  a  thrilling  historical  poem 
might  be  made  of  that  !"  a 

These  men,  and  the  whole  contingent  of  colored 
troops  did  splendidly.  Their  friends  had  no  occa 
sion  either  to  apologize  for  them  or  to  regret  their 
own  efforts  to  enlist  and  despatch  them.3 

While  these  events  were  in  progress,  Mr.  Phillips 
gave  concurrent  attention  to  another  matter.  He 

1  Letter  to  Lydia  Maria  Child  (MS.). 

2  "  Letters  of  Lydia  Maria  Child,"  p.  235. 

3  Vide  George  W.  Williams's  "  History  of  the  Colored  Troops  in  the 
Rebellion." 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  333 

had  learned  from  bitter  experience  that  Boston  could 
not,  that  no  great  city  could,  decently  govern  itself. 
State  laws,  even  city  laws,  were  flouted  when  they 
ran  counter  to  the  prejudices  or  the  interests  of  influ 
ential  classes  in  the  centres  of  population.  Accord 
ingly,  he  pleaded  for  and  secured  in  Boston  what  is 
called  a  Metropolitan  Police.  Speaking  from  Theo 
dore  Parker's  pulpit  in  the  spring  of  1863,  he  said  : 

"  Th£  capital  of  the  civilized  world,  London,  many  years  ago, 
found  herself  utterly  unable  to  contend  with  the  evils  of  accumu 
lated  population, — found  municipal  machinery  utterly  inadequate 
for  the  security  of  life  or  property  in  her  streets  ;  and  the  na 
tional  Government,  by  the  hand  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  assumed  the 
police  regulation  of  that  cluster  of  towns  which  we  commonly 
call  London,  though  the  plan  does  not  include  the  city  proper. 
New  York,  on  our  continent,  about  six  years  ago,  followed  the 
example  ;  Baltimore  and  Cincinnati  have  done  likewise  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  and  so  also  have  some  of  the  other  West 
ern  cities.  The  experience  of  all  great  accumulations  of  prop 
erty  and  population  reads  us  a  lesson,  that  the  execution  of  the 
laws  therein  demands  extra  consideration  and  peculiar  machinery. 
The  self-organized  Safety  Committees  of  San  Francisco  and  other 
cities  prove  the  same  fact.  Indeed,  great  cities  are  nests  of 
great  vices,  and  it  has  been  the  experience  of  republics  that 
great  cities  are  an  exception  to  the  common  rule  of  self-governed 
communities.  Neither  New  York,  nor  New  Orleans,  nor  Balti 
more — none  of  the  great  cities — has  found  the  ballot-box  of  its 
individual  voters  a  sufficient  protection,  through  a  police  organi 
zation.  Great  cities  cannot  be  protected  on  the  theory  of  repub 
lican  institutions.  We  may  like  it  or  not, — seventy  years  have 
tried  the  experiment,  and,  so  far,  it  is  a  failure  ;  and  if  there  is 
no  resource  outside  of  the  city  limits,  then  a  self-governed  great 
city  is,  so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  the  most  uncomfortable 
which  any  man  who  loves  free  speech  can  live  in.  It  is  no  sur 
prise,  therefore,  that  we  ask  you  no  longer  to  let  the  police  force 
represent  the  voters  of  Boston." 

Having  thus  stated  the  case,  he  proceeded  to  re- 


334  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

• 

cite  the  reasons  for  the  change,  in  the  non-execution 
of  the  temperance  laws  of  the  commonwealth,  and 
in  the  denial  of  free  speech.  In  reply  to  the  objec 
tion  that  the  proposed  change  was  undemocratic,  he 
said  : 

"  Men  say,  to  take  the  appointment  of  the  police  out  o.f  the 
hands  of  the  peninsula  is  anti-democratic.  Why,  from  1620 
down  to  within  ten  years,  the  State  always  acted  on  that  plan. 
The  State  makes  the  law.  Who  executes  it  ?  The  State.  For 
two  hundred  years,  the  Governor  appointed  the  sheriff  of  every 
county,  and  the  sheriff  appointed  his  deputies,  and  they  executed 
the  laws.  The  constables  of  the  towns  were  allowed  merely  a 
subsidiary  authority  to  execute  by-laws,  and  help  execute  the 
State  law.  The  democratic  principle  is,  that  the  law  shall  be 
executed  by  an  executive  authority  concurrent  with  that  which 
makes  it.  That  is  democracy.  The  State  law,  naturally,  demo 
cratically,  is  to  be  executed  by  the  State.  We  have  merely,  in 
deference  to  convenience,  changed  that  of  late  in  some  particu 
lars,  and  we  may  reasonably  go  back  to  the  old  plan  if  we  find 
that,  in  any  particular  locality,  the  new  plan  fails.  Why  not  ? 
In  all  other  matters  of  State  concern, — Board  of  Education, 
Board  of  Agriculture,  and  all  the  various  boards, — the  State  has 
the  control.  You  perceive  this  '  anti-democratic  '  argument  can 
be  carried  out  to  an  absurdity.  Suppose  the  Five  Points  of  New 
York  should  send  word  to  the  Fifth  Avenue,  '  We  don't  like 
your  police  ;  we  mean  to  have  one  of  our  own,  and  it  will  be 
very  anti-democratic  for  you  to  take  the  choice  of  our  constables 
out  of  our  hands.'  Suppose  North  Street  should  send  word  to 
the  City  Hall,  '  We  have  concluded  to  turn  every  other  house 
into  a  grog-shop,  or  something  almost  as  bad,  and  to  appoint 
our  own  police  ;  please  instruct  your  police  to  keep  out  of  our 
ward.'  We  should  not  say  this  was  democratic.  We  should 
say,  that  as  far  as  the  interest,  of  a  community  in  a  law  extends, 
just  so  far  that  community  has  a  right  to  a  hand  in  the  execution 
of  it."  ' 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1863  that  the   edition  of 


"  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p    516  sq. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  335 

Mr.  Phillips's  collected  "  Speeches  and  Lectures" 
was  first  published.  The  volume  was  eagerly  caught 
up.  It  had  not  to  wait  until  centuries  should  cob 
web  it,  but  was  born  a  classic.  From  then  until  now 
the  demand  for  it  has  been  unceasing.  •  In  facetious 
mood,  the  orator  took  a  copy  to  his  wife,  in  which 
he  had  written  on  the  title-page  :  "  Speeches  and 
Lectures.  By  Ann  Phillips" — his  way  of  recogniz 
ing  her  influence  upon  his  career. 

As  the  year  1863  waxed  old  two  questions  divided 
the  country,  in  addition  to  the  war,  though  in  fact 
growing  out  of  it — reconstruction  and  the  re-election 
of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Having  overrun  and  subjugated 
large  sections  of  the  South,  the  nation  was  con 
fronted  by  the  problem  as  to  the  practical  disposition 
to  be  made  of  them.  The  Administration  favored 
the  readmission  of  such  portions  of  these  sections  as 
were  conterminous  with  the  old  State  boundaries, 
under  the  ancient  State  constitutions,  altered  only 
sufficiently  to  recognize  the  freedom  of  the  blacks. 
Mr.  Phillips  set  himself  against  this.  He  maintained 
that  freedom,  in  the  American  conception,  was  only 
complete  when  it  included  the  elective  franchise  and 
equa*l  rights  before  the  law.1  On  these  vital  points 
the  State  Constitution  of  Louisiana,  which  was  the 
commonwealth  then  specially  in  question,  remained 
precisely  where  it  always  had  stood — with  a  code  noir 
as  black  as  Algiers.  Because  Mr.  Lincoln  refused 
to  make  such  changes  as  should  harmonize  the  con 
quered  territories  with  the  American  conception  of 
freedom,  conditions  precedent  to  readmission,  the 
Agitator  vigorously  opposed  his  renomination.  He 


1  Vide  Liberator^  vol.  xxxiv.,  p.  22. 


33^  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

favored  any  one  of  half  a  dozen  other  names  which 
were  unobjectionable  from  an  Abolitionist's  point  of 
view.1  The  issue  was  decided  in  the  Republican 
Convention,  and  in  the  subsequent  national  election, 
adversely  to  Mr.  Phillips,  who  submitted  to  the  in 
evitable.  He  was  wise  in  objecting  to  such  shilly 
shally  reconstruction — mistaken  in  preferring  Fre 
mont  to  Lincoln  ;  a  man  who,  when  he  stumbled, 
always  stumbled  forward.  The  position  he  took  at 
this  moment  brought  him  into  collision  with  the  ma 
jority  of  Unionists, — Garrison  among  the  rest.2 
After  events  convinced  him  of  his  erroneous  judg 
ment.3 

The  war  was  now  gasping  toward  the  end.  Grant, 
transferred  from  the  West  to  the  East,  had  struck 
unity  and  infused  vigor  into  the  hitherto  unsystem 
atic  and  sluggish  military  operations  of  the  Union. 
Sherman  marched  through  the  Confederacy  to  the 
sea, — Lee  was  pushed  back,  stubbornly  but  vainly 
contesting  every  step, — Richmond  was  captured,— 
Appomattox  was  reached, — and,  on  April  pth,  1865, 
the  Rebellion  collapsed  ! 

Side  by  side  with  these  victories  of  war  strode 
other  victories  of  peace.  The  nation  had  been  'con 
vinced  at  last  that  there  could  be  no  permanent  rec 
onciliation  until  slavery  was  buried  in  the  grave 
which  yawned  to  receive  the  Confederacy.  This 
conviction,  after  the  fashion  of  popular  government, 
soon  expressed  itself  in  appropriate  legislation. 


1  Vide  various  speeches  and  acts  of  Mr.  Phillips  at  this  period,  as 
reported  in  the  Liberator,  vol.  xxxiv.,  pp.  81,  83,  87,  94. 

2  Vide  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  pp.  107-12. 

3  "  Lincoln  was  slow,  but  he  got  there.     Let  us  thank  God  for  him." 
Thus  he  wrote,  in  1866,  to  the  Rev.  John  T.  Sargent  (MS.). 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  337 

Maryland  and  Missouri  made  haste  to  join  the  sister 
hood  of  free  States.  Illinois  repealed  her  "  black 
laws, ' '  as  infamous  as  the  kindred  codes  of  the  South, 
and  more  inexcusable.  Then  came  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
forever  abolishing  slavery.  Coupled  with  the  top 
pling  military  fortunes  of  the  Confederacy,  as  they 
were,  it  is  not  surprising  that  these  transcendent 
achievements  should  have  produced  a  frenzy  of  joy 
from  ocean  to  ocean.  Men  hugged  one  another  in 
the  streets.  The  churches  sent  the  Amen  of  the 
nation  into  the  ear  of  God — to  whom  a  grateful  con 
tinent  ascribed  the  glory  ! 

While  all  were  happy,  the  colored  people  were 
exultant.  They  celebrated  the  jubilee  from  the  Gulf 
to  the  Lakes.  One  memorable  meeting  of  this  kind 
specially  concerns  us — the  Boston  Celebration.  For 
George  Thompson  (who  had  hurried  across  the  At 
lantic  to  be  "  in  at  the  death")  and  Garrison  and 
Phillips  were  with  them  to  voice  their  feelings.1  But 
the  eloquence  of  the  occasion  itself  out-thundered 
even  such  orators.  Slavery  was  dead  !  Immediate 
and  unconditional  emancipation  was  embalmed  in 
the  fundamental  law  of  the  Republic  !  The  pro 
phetic  vision  of  Wendell  Phillips  was  realized  : 

"  When  the  smoke  of  this  conflict  clears  away,  the  world  will 
see  under  our  banner  one  brotherhood — and  on  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac,  the  Genius  of  Liberty,  robed  in  light,  four-and-thirty 
stars  for  her  diadem,  broken  chains  under  her  feet,  and  an  olive 
branch  in  her  right  hand."  2 


1   Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxv.,  p.  37. 
8  "  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  414. 


XXVI. 

SHADOW    IN    SUNSHINE. 

ON  April  I4th,  1865,  exactly  four  years  after  the 
surrender  of  Fort  Sumter,  the  vindicated  and  glori 
fied  flag  was  raised  again  over  the  very  citadel  whence 
it  had  been  snatched  by  treason,  and  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  waved  above  the  cradle  and  the  grave  of  the 
Rebellion.  The  -company  gathered  to  take  part  in 
the  dramatic  ceremonial  was  notable,  and  included 
Major  Anderson  (the  hero  of  both  dates),  Judge 
Holt,  Senator  Henry  Wilson,  H.  W.  Beecher  (the 
orator  of  the  day),  and  by  special  invitation  of  the 
National  Government,  those  twins  of  Abolition, 
George  Thompson  and  William  Lloyd  Garrison. 

Garrison  in  Charleston  !  And  without  the  smell 
of  tar  upon  his  garments  !  One  never-to-be-forgot 
ten  morning,  he  stood  at  the  tomb  of  Calhoun.  Lay 
ing  his  hand  upon  the  monument,  the  Abolitionist 
said  solemnly  :  "  Down  into  a  deeper  grave  than 
this  slavery  has  gone,  and  for  it  there  is  no  resurrec 
tion."  Fit  the  hour,  fit  the  man,  and  fit  the  place 
for  the  burial  service  of  human  bondage.1  Devils 
shrieked,  but  angels  chanted  "  Alleluia  !" 

Later,  on  the  same  day,  the  blacks  gave  their 
friend  a  delirious  welcome.  Surrounded  by  wildly 
applauding  thousands  he  stood  ;  when  out  from  the 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxv. ,  p.  76. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  339 

press  came  the  spokesman  of  the  negroes,  leading 
two  little  girls,  neatly  dressed,  by  the  hand.  Ad 
dressing  Mr.  Garrison,  he  said  : 

"Sir,  it  is  with  pleasure  that  is  inexpressible  that  I  welcome 
you  here  among  us,  the  long,  the  steadfast  friend  of  the  poor, 
down-trodden  slave.  Sir,  I  have  read  of  you.  I  have  read  of 
the  mighty  labors  you  have  had  for  the  consummation  of  this 
glorious  object.  Here  you  see  stand  before  you  your  handi 
work.  These  children  were  robbed  from  me,  and  I  stood  deso 
late.  Many  a  night  I  pressed  a  sleepless  pillow  from  the  time 
I  returned  to  my  bed  until  the  morning.  I  lost  a  dear  wife, 
and  after  her  death  that  little  one,  who  is  the  counterpart 
of  her  mother's  countenance,  was  taken  from  me.  I  appealed 
for  her  with  all  the  love  and  reason  of  a  father.  The  rejec 
tion  came  forth  in  these  words  :  '  Annoy  me  not,  or  I  will  sell 
them  off  to  another  State.'  I  thank  God  that,  through  your  in 
strumentality,  under  the  folds  of  that  glorious  flag  which  treason 
tried  to  triumph  over,  you  have  restored  them  to  me.  And  I  tell 
you  that  it  is  not  this  heart  alone,  but  there  are  mothers,  there 
are  fathers,  there  are  sisters,  and  there  are  brothers,  the  pulsa 
tions  of  whose  hearts  are  unimaginable.  The  greeting  that  they 
would  give  you,  sir,  is  almost  impossible  for  me  to  express  ;  but, 
sir,  we  welcome  and  look  upon  you  as  our  saviour.  We  thank 
you  for  what  you  have  done  for  us.  Take  this  wreath  from 
these  children  ;  and  when  you  go  home,  never  mind  how  faded 
the  flowers  may  be,  preserve  them,  encase  them,  and  keep  them 
as  a  token  of  affection  from  one  who  has  lived  and  loved." 
(Cheers.} l 

And  a  man  who  could  thus  think,  feel,  express 
himself,  a  few  months  before  had  been  an  article  of 
merchandise  !  * 

Toward  evening  of  this  day,  to  him,  of  pleasurable 
experiences,  Mr.  Garrison  went  out  to  the  adjacent 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxv.,  p.  72. 

2  His  name  was  Samuel  Dickerson.     His  speech  was  his  own,  and 
was  conceived  and  spoken  as  given  above. 


340  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

camp  of  the  Fifty-fifth  Massachusetts  (colored)  Regi 
ment.  Crowded  around  were  the  plantation 
"  hands,"  clothed  in  the  rags  and  ignorance  inher 
ited  from  the  dead  iniquity.  "  Well,"  cried  Mr. 
Garrison,  "  you  are  free  at  last.  Let  us  give  three 
cheers."  He  led  off.  To  his  amazement,  there  was 
no  response.  The  poor  creatures  looked  at  him 
with  a  surprise  equal  to  his  own.  He  had  to  give 
the  second  and  the  third  cheers  also  without  them. 
They  did  not  know  how  to  cheer  !  1 

If  the  scene  at  Charleston  was  dramatic,  the  scene 
at  Washington  was  more  so — tragedy  outdone. 
While  Garrison  was  being  feted,  on  the  very  day 
described,  Lincoln  lay  dead.  The  creator  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  movement  in  America  was  in  Carolina, 
rejoicing  with  the  freedmen.  The  President  who 
was  the  instrument  of  the  emancipation,  was  in 
heaven,  presenting  three  millions  of  broken  fetters 
before  the  throne  of  Justice  and  Love. 

Amid  the  general  consternation  caused  by  the 
bullet  of  Wilkes  Booth,  Mr.  Phillips  was  besought 
to  express  the  sorrow  and  recite  the  lesson  of  the 
hour.  This  he  did,  on  April  iQth,  in  the  Tremont 
Temple,  in  Boston  : 

"  These  are  sober  days.  The  judgments  of  God  have  found 
us  out.  Thirty  years  ago,  none  heeded  the  fire  and  gloom 
which  slumbered  below.  It  was  nothing  that  a  giant  sin  gagged 
our  pulpits  ;  that  its  mobs  ruled  our  cities,  burned  men  at  the 
stake  for  their  opinions,  and  hunted  them  like  wild  beasts  for 
their  humanity.  It  was  nothing  that  in  the  lonely  quiet  of  the 
plantation  the  eye  of  lust  and  the  whip  of  rage  fell  on  the  un- 
pitied  person  of  the  slave.  In  vain  did  a  thousand  witnesses 
crowd  our  highways  telling  the  world  the  horrors  of  the  prison- 


Vide  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  149. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  34! 

house.  None  stopped  to  consider.  None  believed.  But  what 
the  world  would  not  look  at,  God  has  set  to-day  in  a  light  so 
ghastly  that  it  dazzles  us  blind.  What  we  would  not  believe, 
God  has  written  all  over  the  face  of  the  continent  with  the 
sword's  point,  in  the  blood  of  our  best  beloved.  We  believe  the 
agony  of  the  slave's  hovel  when  it  takes  its  seat  at  our  own 
board. 

"  And  what  of  him  in  whose  life  fluid  this  lesson  is  writ  ?  He 
sleeps  in  the  blessings  of  the  poor  whose  fetters  God  commis 
sioned  him  to  break.  Who  among  living  men  may  not  envy 
him  ?  Suppose  that,  when  a  boy,  he  floated  on  the  slow  current 
of  the  Mississippi,  idly  gazing  at  the  slave  upon  its  banks,  some 
angel  had  lifted  the  curtain  and  shown  him  that  in  his  prime  he 
should  see  America  rocked  to  its  foundation  in  the  effort  to 
break  these  chains,  and  should  himself  marshal  the  hosts  of  the 
Almighty  in  the  grandest  and  holiest  war  that  Christendom  ever 
knew,  and  hurl  the  thunderbolt  of  justice  that  should  smite  the 
proud  system  to  the  dust :  then  die,  leaving  a  name  immortal  in 
the  sturdy  pride  of  one  race  and  in  the  undying  gratitude  of 
another.  Would  any  credulity,  however  sanguine,  would  any 
enthusiasm,  however  fervid,  have  enabled  him  to  believe  it  ? 
Fortunate  man  !  He  lived  to  do  it  !"  l 

As  in  a  drama,  subsidiary  incidents,  kindred  and 
suggestive,  lead  up  to  the  great  tableaux,  so  the  two 
scenes  enacted  at  Charleston  and  at  Washington 
were  preceded  or  accompanied  by  other  examples 
of  retributive  justice,  undreamed-of  contrast,  and 
startling  coincidence.  Harper's  Ferry  had  been 
burned  by  General  Tyndale,  who  three  years  before 
went  to  Virginia  to  claim  the  body  of  John  Brown 
and  take  it  North,— then  insulted  and  threatened, 
now  putting  the  torch  to  the  hotel  where  the  mob 
raged  on  him,  and  only  stopping  the  conflagration, 
when  it  reached  the  engine-house,  "  the  Gibraltar," 


1  Vide  the  Boston  press  of  April  2oth,  1865,  -for  reports  of  this  strik 
ing  address,  not  otherwise  in  print. 


342  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

as  Wendell  Phillips  called  it,  "  from  which  the  brave 
old  man  fired  the  first  gun  at  Virginia  slavery."  1 

A  daughter  of  John  Brown  had  established  a 
school  for  colored  children  in  the  very  residence  of 
Henry  A.  Wise,  the  governor  who  hung  her  father, 
and  "  old  OssawatomieV  portrait  hung  on  the 
wall  of  the  slave-holder  and  looked  down  approv 
ingly  upon  the  work.  A  son  of  Frederick  Douglass 
was  likewise  teaching  in  Maryland,  in  the  place 
where  the  negro  orator  had  been  a  slave,  and  whence 
he  had  followed  the  North  Star  to  freedom.  The 
plantation  of  Jefferson  Davis  had  been  transformed 
into  a  "  contraband"  camp,  and  was  finally  bought 
and  worked  by  the  former  slaves  of  the  Confederate 
President.  The  estate  of  General  Lee,  at  Arling 
ton,  became  a  freedmen's  village,  with  a  "  Garrison 
Street"  and  a  "  Lovejoy  Street,"  and  at  last  a  rest 
ing-place  for  the  Union  dead.2  Mighty  tragedy  ! 
whose  four  acts  were  four  years,  with  a  continent 
for  a  stage,  with  two  races  for  the  actors,  and  with 
episodes  and  denouements  unimaginable. 

The  first  feeling  of  the  Abolitionists  was  that  now 
their  work  was  done.  On  second  thought,  they 
perceived  their  mistake.  The  freedmen,  without 
civil  rights,  ignorant,  poor,  needed  sympathy  and 
direction  almost  as  desperately  as  they  had  needed 
emancipation.  They  were  but  half  free,  in  a  repub 
lic,  until  they  were  seated  in  self-ownership,  not 
only,  but  clothed  and  in  their  right  mind  as  citizens. 

So  far  all  were  agreed.  At  the  annual  meeting  of 
the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  New  York 


Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxiii.,  p.  37. 

Vide  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  133. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  343 

City,  in  May,  1865,  the  pioneers  disagreed  as  to  the 
continuation  of  the  old  agencies.  Mr.  Garrison  con 
tended  that  the  national  society  should  dissolve  at 
this  session,  since  slavery  was  abolished  ;  that  its 
existence  isolated  its  members  when  isolation  was  no 
longer  needful,  as  co-workers  abounded,  and  that 
what  remained  to  be  done  could  be  done  better 
through  other  channels.1  Mr.  Phillips  differed.  He 
emphasized  the  fact  that  the  Thirteenth  Amendment, 
though  passed  by  Congress,  had  not  yet  been  ratified 
by  the  States,  and  that  hence  slavery  was  not  legally 
abolished  ;  that  the  historic  position  of  the  society 
outside  of  parties  and  churches  gave  it  moral  au 
thority,  vindicated  by  the  past,  and  mightier  in 
present  circumstances  ;  that  its  pledge  bound  it  in 
spirit,  if  not  verbally,  to  life  and  action  until  the 
freedom  of  the  blacks  should  be  signed  and  sealed 
not  alone  by  emancipation  but  by  citizenship  ;  and 
that  Abolitionists  could  labor  for  these  ends  most 
efficiently  on  their  time-honored  platform.2 

The  discussion  was  prolonged  and  warm,  Messrs. 
Edmund  Quincy,  Oliver  Johnson,  and  Samuel  May, 
Jr.,  concurring  with  Mr.  Garrison  ;  while  Anna  E. 
Dickinson,  Frederick  Douglass,  Robert  Purvis, 
Charles  Lennox  Remond,  and  others  supported  Mr. 
Phillips.  The  society  resolved  to  go  on  by  a  vote 
of  118  to  48.  Mr.  Phillips  was  elected  President, 
and  succeeded  Mr.  Garrison,  who  persisted  in  re 
tiring.  Aaron  M.  Powell  took  editorial  charge  of 
the  society's  organ,  the  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  re 
placing  Messrs.  Quincy  and  Johnson,  who  also  with- 


1  Vide  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  157  sqq. 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxv.,  pp.  81,  82. 


344  WENDELL   miLLIPS. 

drew.  A  new  Executive  Committee  was  chosen. 
Then  an  adjournment  was  carried  amid  great  rejoic 
ing.1 

Two  weeks  later,  the  debate  was  transferred  to 
the  anniversary  meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  in  Boston  ;  and  later  still  to  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  New  England  Society,  in  the 
same  city  ;  when  Mr.  Phillips  again  triumphed  by 
a  majority  ol  three  to  one  ;2  and  he  thus  held  these 
three  organizations  together  throughout  the  heated 
and  perilous  period  of  reconstruction. 

This  controversy  divided  the  veterans  into  two 
camps,  a  larger  and  a  smaller,  at  an  hour  when  it 
would  have  been  wiser  for  them  to  have  remained 
united.  It  kept  some  at  the  front  and  sent  others  to 
the  rear,  when  all  were  needed  in  the  battle.  It  also 
caused  bad  feeling  at  the  time — which  eventually 
gave  place  to  the  old  friendliness.  Mr.  Phillips, 
however,  neither  felt  nor  expressed  himself  toward 
the  schismatics,  otherwise  than  with  the  heartiness 
of  former  years.  He  realized  that  the  difference 
was  one  of  expediency  rather  than  principle — of 
methods,  not  of  objects.  Hence,  he  went  on  loving 
and  lauding  Mr.  Garrison  as  of  yore.3 

An  evidence  of  the  changed  attitude  of  Boston 
toward  its  most  illustrious  son  was  given  in  the  sum 
mer  of  1865,  by  a  pressing  request  which  reached 
him  from  the  School  Committee,  to  address  the  chil 
dren  of  the  city  at  their  annual  Festival,  on  July  28th. 
Mr.  Phillips  complied,  and  showered  down  reminis 
cences,  anecdotes,  aphorisms,  sage  bits  of  advice, 


1  Vide  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  161.       3  /£.,  p.   175. 

2  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxv.,  p.  26. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  345 

exhortations  to  lofty  duty,  in  a  manner  so  genial  and 
charming,  that  young  and  old  were  alike  instructed 
and  captivated.  In  a  hasty  note  he  described  the 
scene  to  a  friend  detained  by  illness  : 

"  I  spoke  at  the  Children's  Festival.  Such  a  sight  !  twelve 
hundred  lads  and  lasses  ;  twelve  hundred  more  adults,  digni 
taries,  etc.,  with  Zerrahn's  great  orchestra.  I  was  popular  and 
bewildered.  Hisses  I  understand,  but  cheers,  and  such  cheers  ! 
However,  the  sight  of  some  old  faces,  Mauley's  black  beard, 
and  Stearns's  long  one,  and  George  Thompson  l  in  the  audience 
taking  snuff,  reassured  me.  I  followed  Dana,  upon  a  cricket, 
three  feet  square  (where  Zerrahn  stands  to  lead  the  band).  I 
spoke  without  gesture  ;  fearing  if  I  moved  a  finger,  I  should 
topple  over  on  one  side  and  fall  into  Mayor  Lincoln's  arms."  2 

There  was  no  evidence  of  these  straitened  circum 
stances  in  the  orator's  address,  at  any  rate— neither 
in  the  matter  nor  in  the  manner  of  it.  Which  goes 
to  show  that  the  eye  and  the  ear  are  not  very  trust 
worthy  witnesses. 

The  closing  event  of  the  year  1865  was  the  formal 
proclamation  of  the  ratification  by  the  requisite  num 
ber  of  States  (twenty-seven  out  of  thirty-six)  of  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment  forever  prohibiting  slavery 
in  the  Republic.  What  remained  to  be  done  ?  The 
next  and  necessary  step  was  the  vitalizing  the  pro 
hibition  by  securing  for  the  freedmen  equal  rights 
before  the  law.  Involuntary  servitude  was  illegal. 
Now  the  black  man  must  be  lifted  into  his  place  be 
side  the  white  man,  with  the  ballot  as  his  certificate 
of  citizenshio. 


1  Mr.  Thompson  soon  after  returned  to  England,  where  he  died, 
October  7th,  1878. 
3  Letter  to  Rev.  John  T.  Sargent  (MS.). 


BOOK  III. 
AFTERNOON. 

1866-1879. 


I. 

FROM   BATTLE-FIELD   TO   FORUM. 

BROADLY  grouped,  two  policies  now  divided  the 
country.  One  was  the  "  grasp-of-war"  policy.  It 
rested  on  the  facts  of  the  case, — the  non-existence  of 
local  governments  in  the  Southern  States, — their 
military  occupation, — the  unprecedented  condition 
of  the  population,  with,  the  ^whites  self-despoiled  of 
power  and  the  blacks  newly  emancipated, — and  the 
necessity  of  subordinating  all  else  to  the  welfare  of 
the  Republic.  The  other  was  the  "insurrection" 
policy.  It  assumed  that  the  Southern  States  re 
tained  their  autonomy  ;  that  the  war  power  ended 
with  the  cessation  of  actual  hostilities  ;  that  no  au 
thority  remained  with  the  National  Government  save 
such  as  it  held  over  the  States  which  had  not  seceded  ; 
and  that  the  South  should  be  permitted  at  once  to 
reorganize  on  the  former  basis,  subject  only  to  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment.  The  first  was  the  policy  of 
the  Republican  party, — the  second  that  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party.  Between  these  theories,  however,  an 
infinite  variety  of  views  prevailed,  founded  on  one 
or  the  other  of  them,  but  shading  off  into  the  ex 
tremes,  with  every  imaginable  intervening  color — 
the  rainbow  outvied. 

The  martyr  President  was  hardly  cold  in  the  grave 
before  his  successor  revealed  his  purpose  to  desert 
his  party  and  "  secede"  to  the  Democracy.  An- 


350  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

drew  Johnson  had  posed  as  a  radical,  was  steeped 
in  pledges  to  bind  the  sheaves  gleaned  by  the  war- 
sickle,  and  was  hailed  by  the  radicals  as  a  distinct 
advance  upon  Lincoln, — as  the  special  representative 
of  the  extreme  Union  sentiment.  Sprung  from  the 
lowest  class  at  the  South,  he  was  without  education, 
but  possessed  native  vigor  and  a  strong  will.  Thus 
dowered,  he  extemporized  what  he  styled  "  my 
policy,"  which  was  essentially  a  Southern  pro 
gramme,  and  set  himself  to  wrest  from  the  nation 
the  fruits  of  its  hard-won  success. 

In  common  with  the  majority,  Mr.  Phillips  had 
turned  expectantly  to  President  Johnson.  '  I  be 
lieve  in  him,"  said  he.1  Bitter,  therefore,  was  his 
chagrin,  unspeakable  his  disgust,  when  the  patriot 
of  yesterday  dropped  the  mask  and  disclosed  the 
traitor  of  to-day.  He  instantly  trained  his  guns  and 
opened  fire  upon  this  new  enemy.  "  Jefferson  Davis 
Johnson, ' '  the  orator  dubbed  him.2  And  he  regarded 
the  situation  as  more  critical  than  it  had  been  at  any 
time  since  1861.  Everything  was  at  stake,  nothing 
was  decided.  The  South  was  still  a  unit,  angry 
from  defeat,  and  enraged  at  the  f reedmen.  The  North 
was  again  divided.  The  battle  was  adjourned  from 
Appomattox  to  Washington,  and  there  seemed  every 
reason  to  fear  that  the  poisonous  remnants  of  the 
slave  system  would  linger  and  fester  for  half  a  cen 
tury — like  Jacobitism  in  England  or  Bourbonism  in 
France.3 

Late  in  the  year  1865  he  wrote  to  a  relative  : 


1  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxxv.,  p.  86. 

2  Vide  Anti- Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxviii.,  August  nth. 

3  Vide  Liberator,  vol.  xxiv.,  p.  81. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  35  I 

"  As  for  the  cause,  everything  I  hear,  public  and  private,  from 
Washington,  increases  my  anxiety  about  this  suffrage  question. 
We  shall  get  all  we  absolutely  bully  out  of  this  Administration, 
and  no  more.  Four  of  the  Cabinet  are  right ;  but  I  fear  the 
President  is  wrong.  All  this  makes  so  much  more  important, 
not  merely  advocating  the  negro's  right  to  the  ballot,  but  letting 
the  Government  know  that  we  oppose  it  if  it  does  not  grant  this. 
As  Charles  Sumner  said  to  Lincoln,  '  Reconstruct  on  the  basis 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  or  count  me  among  the  op 
ponents  of  your  Administration.'  That  is  the  talk  and  action 
which  governments  hear  and  obey."  * 

The  dangers  of  that  nightmare  hour  were  aggra 
vated  by  the  purpose  of  the  Administration  to  huddle 
together  any  pretext  of  a  government  and  railroad 
the  seceded  States  back  into  the  Union,  in  order  to 
secure  for  Johnson  the  Southern  vote  in  the  election 
of  1868  ;  the  renegade  being  troubled  by  that  pecul 
iar  American  political  distemper  yclept  the  Presi 
dential  bee  in  the  bonnet. 

Mr.  Seward  was  the  Mephistopheles  of  the  scene  : 
"How  many  stars  do  we  want  on  the  flag?"  he 
asked,  "shall  we  not  have  them  all?"  To  which 
James  Russell  Lowell  replied  :  ' '  As  many  fixed  stars 
as  you  please,  but  no  more  shooting  ones. "  2 

Mr.  Phillips  never  before  or  afterward  experienced 
such  anxious  and  laborious  days  and  nights.  He  was 
drained  in  mind,  body,  and  purse.  The  withdrawal 
of  Mr.  Garrison  in  this  grave  emergency  thrust  upon 
him  the  duty  of  sustaining  the  Anti-Slavery  societies, 
formulating  their  platforms,  and  animating  their 
gatherings.  He  became  an  editorial  contributor  to 
the  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  and  from  this  coigne  of 


1  Letter  to  Miss  Grew  (MS.). 

2  Vide  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxvii.,  No.  29. 


352  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

vantage  discharged  sharp  arrows  into  the  ranks  of 
the  opposition,  as  the  Saracen  in  Scott's  story  ma 
noeuvred  against  the  Knight  of  the  Leopard.  These 
contributions,  continued  during  four  years,  covered 
the  whole  field  of  controversy,  and  frequently  in 
cluded  outside  topics,  as  the  Indian  question,  and  a 
succession  of  pleas  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
Chinese.1  As  time  passed,  too,  and  one  and  another 
of  the  veterans  exchanged  earth  for  heaven,  he  pub 
lished  in  the  Standard  obituaries  marked  by  the  ex 
quisite  taste  and  appreciative  beauty  characteristic 
of  the  man.2 

Mr.  Phillips  was  in  touch  with  Sumner,  Wilson, 
Wade,  in  the  Senate,  with  Kelley,  Stevens,  Colfax, 
in  the  House,  and  with  the  formers  and  leaders  of 
public  opinion  in  the  community.  He  was  recog 
nized  as  the  most  prominent  figure  in  unofficial  life. 
Every  word  he  spoke  or  wrote  had  the  weight  of  an 
oracle.  His  articles  were  regularly  transferred 
from  the  columns  of  the  Standard  to  the  pages  of  the 
leading  journals  of  both  parties.3  His  speeches  were 
caught  up  and  echoed  with  similar  eagerness  across 

1  Vide  Anti- Slavery  Standard,  vols.  xxvii.,    xxviii.,  xxix.,  xxx. ,/#.$•- 
sint . 

2  Ib. 

3  An  indication  of  this  is  found  in  the  following  editorial  remarks, 
clipped  from  the  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  Morning  Express,  and  quoted  in 
the  Standard,  vol.  xxviii.,  April  2Oth  :  "  We  print  to-day  the  latest  of 
Mr.  Phillips's  articles,  as  we  have  for  months  printed  his  editorials. 
No  other  man  in  the  country  has  been  so  gloriously  and  generally 
right  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  as  Wendell  Phillips.     He  is 
the  soul  of  integrity,  and  is  as  chivalrous  as  Bayard.     To  this  ground 
work  of  manly  and  useful  character,  he  adds  a  remarkable  political 
sagacity  which  no  partisan  could  possibly  possess.     His  writings  and 
speeches  are  certain  to  become  classics  and  will  be  read  and  readable 
centuries  hence." 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  353 

the  continent.  "What  does  Phillips  say?"  was  a 
first  inquiry  regarding-  each  new  phase  of  the  strug 
gle  ;  and  what  he  said  shaped  thought  and  made 
sentiment  surprisingly.  At  no  other  period  since 
their  organization,  had  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and 
the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society  possessed 
the  influence  they  now  wielded  ;  and  they  were  so 
many  multiplications  of  Wendell  Phillips,  worked 
by  his  -friends  and  vitalized  by  his  spirit.  The  inde 
pendence  of  these  bodies,  with  no  candidate  to  elect, 
no  party  to  guard,  no  personal  interests  to  jeopard, 
and  contending  alone  for  essential  principles,  dis 
armed  suspicion  and  opened  the  public  ear  and  mind. 
The  statesmen  at  the  Capital  gratefully  recognized 
the  value  of  their  service.  "  Hold  the  societies  to 
gether,"  wrote  Sumner  to  Phillips,  "  the  crisis  is 
grave.  You  and  they  are  doing  indispensable  work  ; 
in  this  I  express  the  conviction  of  every  Senator  and 
every  Representative  on  our  side  of  pending  ques 
tions."  The  crowds  in  attendance  upon  the  meet 
ings,  and  the  reception  of  Mr.  Phillips's  utterances, 
show  the  feelings  of  the  people. 

In  May,  1866,  at  the  anniversary  of  the  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  Mr.  Phillips  photographed 
the  situation  in  the  following  antithetical  resolution  : 

"  The  Rebellion  has  not  ceased,  it  has  only  changed  its 
weapons.  Once  it  fought,  now  it  intrigues  ;  once  it  followed 
Lee  in  arms,  now  it  follows  President  Johnson  in  guile  and  chi 
canery  ;  once  its  headquarters  were  in  Richmond,  now  it  en 
camps  in  the  White  House."  2 


1  Letter  from  Sumne/,  March  lyth,  1866  (MS.). 
"  Vide  Anti- Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxvii.,  May 


354  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

In  speaking-  on  this  resolution,  he  said  : 

"  I  have  a  great  delight  in  taming  animals.  Rarey  is  a  hero 
of  mine.  The  other  day  I  read  of  the  taming  of  a  lion  in  Paris. 
They  took  a  stuffed  hussar  jacket,  covered  with  a  hundred  brass 
buttons,  and  they  put  it  in  the  den.  He  tore  it  to  pieces  and 
devoured  it  and  had  an  awful  fit  of  indigestion — lay  a  sick  lion 
for  a  week.  Afterward,  whenever  a  man  clad  in  a  hussar  jacket 
came  into  the  cage,  the  lion  lay  silent  and  submissive  before 
him.  He  would  never  touch  a  hussar  jacket,  whatever  it  had 
in  it.  Now  America  devoured  one  hussar  jacket  with  '  John 
Tyler '  written  on  it,  and  another  with  '  Fillmore  '  written  on 
it,  and  now  another  in  Andy  Johnson.  Not  as  wise  as  the 
brute,  in  spite  of  political  indigestion,  this  nation  goes  on  de 
vouring  hussar  jackets."  J 

In  the  summer  of  1866,  Mr.  Phillips  was  urged 
to  accept  a  nomination  for  Congress  from  his  dis 
trict.  It  was  felt  that  he  might  be  there  what  John 
Bright  was  in  Parliament.  Journals  like  the  Com 
monwealth  and  the  Voice,  in  Boston,  the  Daily  Times 
and  the  Independent,  in  New  York,  strongly  favored 
the  project.  The  Agitator,  however,  better  under 
stood  his  own  mood  and  habit.  He  refused  even  to 
consider  a  nomination.  His  position  now  was 
unique  ;  made  so  by  his  perfect  independence. 
When  the  elder  Pitt  was  made  Earl  of  Chatham  and 
passed  out  of  the  House  of  Commons  and  into  the 
House  of  Lords,  the  great  Commoner  went  into 
eclipse.  Some  one  missing  the  familiar  figure,  asked 
Chesterfield  what  had  become  of  Pitt.  "  He  has 
had  a  fall  upstairs,"  was  the  answer.  Phillips  did 
not  wish  to  abdicate  his  present  office  and  lose  him 
self  in  the  crowd  of  Congressional  nobodies, — to  fall 
upstairs.  He  preferred  to  remain  untrammelled,  as 


Vide  Anti- Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxvii.,  May  igth. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  355 

a  professor  of  ethics  in  the  university  of  the  Ameri 
can  conscience. 

Using,  then,  the  old  agencies,  and  continuing  to 
serve  the  Lyceum,  he  went  up  and  down  instruct 
ing,  warning,  inspiring.  From  the  close  of  the  war 
onward,  Mr.  Phillips  was  in  enormous  demand.  No 
lecture  course  was  esteemed  complete  without  him. 
His  name  was  an  unfailing  magnet.  Had  he  been 
twelve  instead  of  one,  and  could  he  have  given  every 
night  in  the  year  to  the  Lyceum,  the  calls  would  not 
have  been  met.  The  lecture  season  began  in  the 
autumn  and  ended  in  the  following  spring.  Months 
in  advance  his  dates  were  filled.  The  season  of 
1866-67  he  opened  in  Boston  with  a  lecture  on  "  The 
Swindling  Congress,"  viz.,  the  Thirty-ninth,  which 
put  juggles  for  justice.  It  wras  in  this  lecture  that 
he  said  : 

"  There  have  never  been  any  friends  of  the  Southerner  in  the 
Northern  States  but  the  Abolitionists.  The  Democrats  deluded 
him  ;  the  Whigs  cheated  him  ;  the  Abolitionists  stood  on  his 
border  and  said  :  '  It  is  in  vain  for  you  to  fight  against  the 
thick  bosses  of  Jehovah's  buckler.  You  are  endeavoring  to  sus 
tain  a  system  that  repudiates  the  laws  of  God  and  the  spirit  of 
the  nineteenth  century  ;  put  it  away,  or  you  will  make  blood  and 
bankruptcy  your  guests.'  But  the  maddened  South  closed  its 
eyes  and  rushed  on  to  destruction.  Now  we  say,  '  Come  into 
line  with  the  age,  found  your  economy  on  righteousness,  and 
then  spindles  will  make  vocal  every  stream  and  fill  every  val 
ley.'  "  l 

From  Boston  the  lecturer  proceeded  Westward 
and  was  welcomed  everywhere  enthusiastically.2 
During  the  day  and  on  Sundays  he  usually  spoke  on 


Vide  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxvii.,  No.  42. 
Ib.t  vol.  xxvii.,  March  gth. 


356  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

'  Temperance  ;"  in  the  evenings,  as  often  as  possible, 
on  the  crisis.1  His  remedy  for  existing  ills  was  sim 
ple — land,  education,  and  the  ballot  for  the  negro  ; 
and  the  means  he  found  in  the  war  power  under 
which  the  nation  had  the  right  to  make  itself  safe.2 
At  Keokuk,  la.,  one  of  the  dailies  said  of  his  lecture 
there  : 

"  His  arguments  grow  on  you.  You  are  pleased  and  inter 
ested  while  he  speaks  ;  it  is  not  until  afterward  that  he  becomes 
wonderful  to  you.  You  shouldn't  commence  to  pass  judgment 
on  his  speeches  earlier  than  twelve  hours  after  their  delivery. 
The  strict  enforcement  of  this  rule  would  damage  the  reputation 
of  most  orators  ;  this  man  it  would  enthrone  and  crown  as  king 
in  the  realm  of  suggestive  thought."  3 

At  St.  Louis,  the  Daily  Despatch  printed  his  lecture 

on  the  "  Times"  in  full  and  remarked  editorially  : 

'  Wendell  Phillips  has  exercised  a  greater  influence 

on  the  destinies  of  the  country  as  a  private  man  than 

any  public  man,  or  men,  of  his  age." 

From  Alton,  111.,  on  April  .I4th,  1867,  Mr.  Phillips 
wrote  to  the  Standard,  describing  the  grave  of  Love- 
joy,  and  added  : 

"  The  gun  fired  at  him  was  like  that  at  Sumter — it  scattered 
a  world  of  dreams.  Looking  back,  how  wise  as  well  as  noble 
his  course  was.  Incredible,  that  we  should  have  been  compelled 
to  defend  his  '  prudence.'  What  world-wide  benefactors  these 
4  imprudent '  men  are  !  How  '  prudently  '  most  men  creep  into 
nameless  graves  ;  while  now  and  then  one  or  two  forget  them 
selves  into  immortality."  5 

The  orator  returned  to  Boston  the  third  week  in 
April  well  and  in  good  spirits,  after  giving  over  sixty 

1  Vide  Anti- Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxvii.,  March  gth.       2 II).,  No.  10. 
3  Keokuk  Gate  City.         4  Cited  in  Standard,  vol.  xxviii.,  April  27th. 

b  Ib. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  357 

lectures  and  travelling-  more  than  twelve  thousand 
miles.1 

In  May  we  find  him  in  New  York  City  in  attend 
ance  on  the  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  ;  the  sessions  being  spicy  and 
thronged.  A  week  later,  he  was  in  Boston  on  the 
platform  of  the  New  England  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
where  he  said  : 

"  Our  effort  should  be  to  infect  the  South  with  the  North, — 
the  North  of  education  and  equality, — the  North  of  toleration 
and  self-respecting  labor, — the  North  of  books  and  brains.  If 
the  South  had  conquered  us,  she  would  have  called  the  roll  of 
her  slaves  on  Bunker  Hill  and  put  her  flag  over  Faneuil  Hall. 
Our  victory  means,  ought  to  mean,  Bunker  Hill  in  the  Carolinas 
and  Faneuil  Hall  in  New  Orleans."  2 

An  event  occurred  in  the  summer  of  1867  which 
gave  Mr.  Phillips  pain  and  entailed  upon  him  great 
expense.  Francis  Jackson,  dying  in  Boston  some 
years  before,  had  left  a  will  bequeathing-  $10,000  to 
the  Anti-Slavery  cause.  Of  this  will  Messrs.  Phil 
lips,  Garrison,  Bowditch,  Quincy,  May,  W hippie, 
and  Edmund  Jackson,  the  testator's  brother,  were 
executors,  with  Mr.  Phillips  as  chairman.  The  Thir 
teenth  Amendment  abolished  slavery  before  the 
money  became  available.  The  question  then  arose 
among  the  executors  as  to  the  proper  disposition  of 
the  fund.  The  majority  agreed  with  Mr.  Phillips 
that  it  ought  to  go  toward  the  support  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Standard  in  the  battle  for  negro  enfranchise 
ment.  The  minority,  composed  of  seceders  from 
the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  not  in  sym- 


1  Vide  Anti  Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxviii.,  April  27th. 

9  Ib.     Report  of  May  Anniversary  in  Boston.     First  week  in  May. 


358  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

pathy  with  its  organ,  wished  to  hand  over  the  be 
quest  to  the  Freedmen's  Union  for  educational  pur 
poses.  The  court  assured  the  executors  that  the 
money  should  follow  their  recommendation,  if  they 
were  agreed.  They  could  not  agree,  and  it  went  by 
direction  of  the  court  to  the  use  designated  by  the 
minority.  '  Thus,"  wrote  Mr.  Phillips,  in  an  ex 
planatory  letter  to  the  Standard,  "  the  money  of  Mr. 
Jackson  was  diverted  from  the  object  to  which  he 
devoted  it,  because  a  minority  of  his  trustees  were 
not  willing  to  accord  to  the  majority  that  liberty 
which  the  majority  granted  them,  and  report  a  plan 
to  which  all  could  agree."  1  Such  a  plan  had  been 
agreed  upon,  by  which  the  fund  was  to  be  divided 
between  the  Standard  and  the  freedmen.  Mr.  Gar 
rison,  on  the  eve  of  departing  for  Europe,  withdrew 
his  assent  to  it,  with  the  result  narrated.  He  based 
his  action  on  the  recent  passage  of  the  Civil  Rights 
Act,  under  which  certain  privileges  were  secured  to 
the  blacks.2  But  as  it  required  two  additional 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  to  complete  the  en 
franchisement  of  the  negro  race,  and  as  these  were 
not  finally  ratified  until  years  later,  it  should  seem 
that  his  excuse  was  flimsy.  It  is  impossible  to  avoid 
the  conclusion  that  the  conduct  of  the  minority  of 
the  trustees  was  dictated  by  pique  and  grudge. 
They  discharged  a  Parthian  arrow  at  the  cause 
which  persisted  in  living  alter  they  had  pronounced 
the  funeral  oration.  The  immediate  effect  of  it  was 
to  throw  upon  Mr.  Phillips,  personally,  a  load  of 


1  Vide  Anti- Slavery   Standard,  vol.  xxviii.,  August  loth  and  24th. 
The  minority  consisted  of  Messrs.  Garrison,  Quincy,  and  May. 

2  Vide  "  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  237  sq. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  359 

pecuniary  responsibility  which  the  fund  would  have 
helped  him  to  carry.  And  all  this  was  understood. 
He  thought  this  conduct  was  unkind  and  unworthy, 
and  felt  it  keenly  ;  in  which  thought  and  feeling  his 
friends  did  and  do  concur. 

An  Anti-Slavery  Conference  was  called  to  meet  in 
Paris,  in  August,  1867,  for  a  comparison  of  views  on 
the  part  of  distinguished  Abolitionists  from  all  quar 
ters  of  the  globe.  From  this  gathering  Mr.  Phillips 
excused  himself,  on  the  ground  that  the  battle  was 
still  raging  in  America.  He  held  that  absence  at 
such  a  moment  would  be  like  a  soldier's  leaving  the 
front  for  the  rear,  and  exchanging  wounds  for  honors 
in  the  midst  of  the  fight.1  There  might  be  a  time 
for  junketing,  but  it  had  not  yet  come  over  here. 

The  Agitator  gave  the  first  week  in  November, 
1867,  to  the  Pennsylvania  Anti-Slavery  Society  and 
held  large  and  successful  meetings  in  Philadelphia 
and  the  vicinity.  At  Wilmington,  Del.,  he  received 
a  written  welcome,  signed  by  prominent  citizens, 
and  a  Godspeed  in  his  work.a  Thence  he  proceeded 
on  his  lecture  tour  for  the  season  of  1867-68.  An 
interesting  incidental  visit  was  paid  at  Vassar  Col 
lege,  where  he  addressed  the  Literary  Societies  on 
"  Street  Life  in  Europe."  The  young  ladies  were 
interested  in  the  lecture  and  charmed  with  the  lec 
turer.3 

In  the  course  of  the  season  Mr.  Phillips  addressed 
the  Lyceum  at  Gloucester,  Mass.,  and,  returning 
home  by  the  cars  the  next  morning,  fell  in  with  a 
lady  who  got  upon  the  train  at  a  way-station.  She 


1  Vide  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxviii.,  September  2ist. 
*/<$.,  November  i6th.  3  Ib.,  December  xyth. 


360  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

was  a  Southern  refugee,  who  had  been  suddenly  re 
duced  from  affluence  to  poverty,  and  was  support 
ing  herself  and  her  fatherless  children  by  giving  an 
occasional  lecture  before  a  country  audience.  It 
was  a  struggle  ;  for  the  field  was  full,  and  she  was 
almost  unknown  and  friendless  ;  but  with  a  brave 
heart  she  worked  on,  never  asking  a  dollar  of  aid 
from  any  society  or  individual.  Mr.  Phillips  saw 
her  get  upon  the  car,  and  asked  her  to  take  a  seat 
beside  him.  It  was  a  winter  day  ;  and  she  was  thinly 
clad,  shivering  from  the  exposure  of  a  long  ride  in 
the  open  air  of  the  cold  morning.  Observing  this, 
Mr.  Phillips  asked  : 

'  Where  did  you  speak  last  night  ?" 

She  told  him  it  was  at  a  town  about  ten  miles  dis 
tant  from  the  railway. 

"  And — I  wouldn't  be  impertinent — how  much  did 
they  pay  you  ?" 

;<  Five  dollars,  and  the  fare  to  and  from  Bos 
ton." 

"  Five  dollars  !"  he  exclaimed  ;  "  why,  I  always 
get  one  or  two  hundred  ;  and  your  lecture  must  be 
worth  more  than  mine, — you  give  facts,  I  only  opin 
ions." 

"  Small  as  it  is,  I  am  very  glad  to  get  it,  Mr.  Phil 
lips,"  answered  the  lady.  '  I  would  talk  at  that 
rate  every  night  during  the  winter." 

He  sat  for  a  moment  in  silence  ;  then  he  put  his 
hand  into  his  pocket,  drew  out  a  roll  of  bank-notes, 
p,nd  said,  in  a  hesitating  way  : 

;<  I  don't  want  to  give  offence,  but  you  know  I 
preach  that  a  woman  is  entitled  to  the  same  as  a  man 
if  she  does  the  same  work.  Now,  my  price  is  one 
or  two  hundred  dollars  ;  and,  if  you  will  let  me 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  361 

divide  it  with  you,  I  shall  not  have  had  any  more 
than  you,  and  the  thing-  will  be  even." 

The  lady  at  first  refused  ;  but,  after  a  little  gentle 
urging,  she  put  the  bank-notes  into  her  purse.  At 
the  end  of  her  journey,  she  counted  the  roll,  and 
found  it  contained  one  hundred  dollars.  It  may  add 
a  point  to  this  incident  to  say  (what  is  the  truth)  that 
the  lady  was  a  niece  of  Jefferson  Davis.1 

The  most  generous  of  men,  Mr.  Phillips  was  also 
the  most  tender.  His  friends,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Aaron 
M.  Powell,  lost  a  rose-bud  daughter  in  the  winter  of 
1867.  Here  is  his  letter  of  condolence,  valuable  for 
the  insight  it  gives,  and  for  its  disclosure  of  his 
faith  : 

"  December  22. 

"  I  know  how  weak  words  are  to  comfort  you  in  such  a  loss. 
Be  sure  our  hearts  go  out  to  you  in  loving  and  tenderest  sym 
pathy.  God  give  you  all  consolation,  and  hold  up  your  hearts. 

"  These  little  pets  twine  around  our  hearts  so  closely,  it  is  such 
agony  to  part  from  them  !  But  such  partings  wean  us,  as  we 
need  to  be,  from  these  scenes.  How  near  and  dear  that  world 
becomes  after  such  transfers  !  After  all,  this  dear  blessing,  lent 
for  a  little  while,  is  not  taken  away,  only  lilted  that  you  may 
more  easily  look  up  to  it."  2 

President  Johnson  was  now  completely  alienated 
from  his  party  and  in  collision  at  all  points  with  Con- 
gress.  He  stood  as  the  great  obstructionist,  veto 
ing  reconstruction  legislation  as  fast  as  bills  were 
passed.  A  clamor  arose  for  his  impeachment,  which 
was  undertaken.  Mr.  Phillips  favored  it  in  the 
Standard  and  on  the  platform.  He  laughed  over 
and  quoted  far  and  wide  the  witticism  of  Petroleum 


1  Austin's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  pp.  243-45. 

2  Letter  to  Aaron  M.  Powell  (MS.). 


362  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

V.  Nasby  :  "  The  President  does  not  believe  that 
power  should  be  concentrated  in  three  or  four  hun 
dred  men  in  Congress,  but  thinks  it  ought  to  be 
safely  diffused  throughout  the  hands  of  one  man— 
A.  Johnson." 

The  outcome  of  the  Johnson  muddle  was  that  the 
President  was  not  impeached  out  of  office,  but  in  the 
course  of  the  struggle  his  power  was  extensively 
curtailed.  Phillips,  Lincoln-like,  put  it  in  a  story  : 
"  Congress  has  deposed  him  without  impeachment. 
'  Friend,  I'll  not  shoot  thee,'  said  the  Quaker  to  the 
foot-pad,  '  but  I'll  hold  thy  head  in  the  water  until 
thee  drown  thyself.'  The  Republican  party  has 
taken  a  leaf  out  of  that  scrupulous  Christian's 
book."  He  thought  that  the  Executive  power  had 
unduly  increased  and  needed  to  be  diminished.  The 
present  condition  of  Johnson  reminded  him  of  the 
English  monarchy  :  "  Heaven  forbid  that  the  land 
of  the  Tudors  and  Stuarts  should  abolish  royalty. 
Keep  kings  ;  but,  like  the  Egyptian  mummy-makers, 
draw  out  all  blood  and  reduce  them  to  forms.  The 
function  of  an  English  monarch  nowadays  is,  like 
that  of  the  queen  bee,  to  be  fed  and  beget  succes 
sors."  * 

The  months  of  February  and  March,  1868,  Mr. 
Phillips  spent  in  the  West.3  In  May  he  was  again  in 
attendance  on  the  anniversary  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  in  New  York  City.  The  uppermost 
question  just  now  was  as  to  who  should  succeed  Presi 
dent  Johnson.  General  Grant  was  apparently  the 
coming  man.  The  orator  opposed  his  nomination 


1  Standard,  vol.  xxviii.,  July  2yih. 

3  ll>. ,  months  of  February  and  March,  passim. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  363 

for  two  reasons  :  First,  because  he  lacked  civil  ex 
perience  ;  second,  because  he  had  not  pronounced 
himself  on  the  issues  of  the  day.  He  contended  that 
a  civilian,  not  a  soldier,  was  needed  in  the  White 
House — that  the  standard-bearer  should  be  a  man  of 
outspoken  convictions,  not  a  sphinx.1  Through  the 
summer  and  fall  of  1868  this  was  his  constant,  his  un 
popular,  and  his  unsuccessful  plea, — this,  and  the 
reiterated  demand  for  negro  suffrage.  "  Having  in 
the  past,"  he  cried,  with  reference  to  the  latter  topic, 
"  done  full  justice  to  the  countrymen  of  Emmet  and 
O'Connell,  of  Goethe  and  Korner,  even  of  Isaiah  and 
the  Maccabees,  let  us  give  to  the  negro  a  chance  to 
show  that  Toussaint  L'Ouverture  was  not  a  splendid 
monster,  but  a  fair  representative  of  the  capacity  of 
his  race."  2 

Under  Radical  prodding,  Congress  had  passed  a 
fourteenth  amendment  to  the  Constitution  ;  which, 
despite  the  frantic  opposition  of  President  Johnson, 
the  Southern  whites,  and  the  Northern  Democracy, 
the  requisite  number  of  States  at  length  adopted — 
public  proclamation  of  the  fact  being  made  in  July, 
1868.  This  made  the  freedmen  citizens  of  the  United 
States  and  of  the  several  States  wherein  they  were 
domiciled,  but  it  left  each  State  to  regulate  the  right 
to  vote.  It  was  another  instalment  of  justice.  Pub 
lic  opinion,  however,  demanded  for  the  negro  the 
ballot.  On  this  point  Phillips  had  educated  the 
country,  which  now  believed  what  he  said  :  "  The 
black  man  without  the  ballot,  is  the  lamb  given  over 
to  the  wolf."  3  Hence,  a  fifteenth  amendment  was 


1  Standard ',  vols.  xxvii.  and  xxviii.  2  Ib.,  vol.  xxviu.,  July  27th. 

3  Anti-Slaver)'  Standard,  vol.  xxx.,  No.  3. 


364  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

mooted,  to  secure  this  essential  safeguard  of  citizen 
ship. 

Wendell  Phillips  held  himself  in  readiness  to  coun 
sel  and  assist  resistance  to  tyrants  not  only  at  home 
but  abroad.  The  island  of  Crete,  anchored  in  the 
Mediterranean  and  steeped  in  classic  memories,  the 
storehouse  whence  the  ancient  Egyptians  and  Phoeni 
cians  brought  civilization  into  Europe, — had  burst 
into  rebellion  against  the  "  unspeakable  Turk,"  and 
her  people  were  engaged  in  an  unequal  struggle  for 
liberty.  Christian  nations  looked  on  in  sympathy. 
A  ladies'  fair  was  held  in  Boston,  in  1868,  to  raise 
money  for  the  far-away  heroes.  Naturally,  they 
turned  to  Mr.  Phillips  to  plead  their  cause.  Just  as 
naturally  he  responded  in  a  speech  which  sobbed 
with  pathos  while  it  thrilled.  Perhaps  the  orator 
never  spoke  more  beautifully  ;  certainly  he  never 
spoke  more  ineffectually  ;  for  though  the  dollars 
called  for  were  gotten,  the  crescent  was  soon  set  in 
triumph  again  above  the  cross.1 

As  he  was  now  recognized  as  the  foremost  speaker 
of  English  in  the  world,  Mr.  Phillips  was  continually 
appealed  to  for  oratorical  "  points."  In  response  to 
such  inquiries  he  was  in  the  habit  of  recommending 
Holyoake's  "  Rudiments  of  Public  Speaking"  as 
holding  the  first  place  among  all  books  on  the  sub 
ject.  He  kept  a  copy  always  at  hand,  which  he  had 
scribbled  all  over  with  his  marginal  notes.  To  a 
young  collegian  who  had  asked  him  questions  con 
cerning  preparation  for  public  speaking,  he  made 
the  following  reply,  which  is  worthy  of  study  as 
coming  from  a  master  : 


1  See  the  Boston  dailies  in  May  for  an  account  of  the  fair. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  365 

"  I  think  practice  with  all  kinds  of  audiences  the  best  of 
teachers.  Think  out  your  subject  carefully.  Read  all  you  can 
relative  to  the  themes  you  touch.  Fill  your  mind  ;  and  then 
talk  simply  and  naturally.  Forget  altogether  that  you  are  to 
make  a  speech,  or  are  making  one.  Absorb  yourself  into  the 
idea  that  you  are  to  strike  a  blow,  carry  out  a  purpose,  effect  an 
object,  recommend  a  plan  ;  then,  having  forgotten  yourself,  you 
will  be  likelier  to  do  your  best.  Study  the  class  of  books  your 
mind  likes.  When  you  go  outside  this  rule,  study  those  which 
give  you  facts  on  your  chosen  topics  and  which  you  find  most 
suggestive. 

"  Remember  to  talk  up  to  an  audience,  not  down  to  it.  The 
commonest  audience  can  relish  the  best  thing  you  can  say  if  you 
say  it  properly.  Be  simple  :  be  earnest."  l 

This  advice  is  stimulating.  But  after  all,  rules 
never  made  an  orator  ;  any  more  than  a  knoAvledge 
of  thorough-bass  made  Mozart,  or  skill  in  mixing 
colors  made  Raphael.  It  is  as  George  William  Cur 
tis  says  :  "  The  secret  of  the  rose's  sweetness,  of  the 
sunset's  glory — that  is  the  secret  of  genius  and  elo 
quence. "  2 


1  Quoted  by  Joseph  Cook  in  his  Monday  lecture  on  Wendell  Phil 
lips,    February  4th,    1884,    and   reported   in    New  York  Independent. 
February  I4th,  1884. 

2  Curtis's  "  Oration  on  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  16. 


II. 

IO  !    TRIUMPHE  ! 

LYCEUM  engagements  absorbed  the  time  of  Mr. 
Phillips  during  the  season  of  1868-69.  The  theme 
he  preferred  was  the  ballot  for  the  black  man,  and, 
as  a  rule,  on  this  he  was  heard.  The  outlook  was 
now  bright.  In  February,  1869,  Congress  resolved 
to  formulate  the  Fifteenth  Amendment.  This  meas 
ure  stirred  the  bitterness  of  race  prejudice,  awoke 
every  Rip  Van  Winkle  to  protest,  and  provoked  a 
last  desperate  outburst  of  profanity  from  the  former 
slave-masters  ;  but  received  the  enthusiastic  sup 
port  of  the  wise  and  good.  Charles  Sumner,  hon 
orably  conspicuous  in  all  the  legislation  which  har 
vested  the  results  of  the  war,  had  charge  of  the 
amendment  in  the  Senate.  He  blundered  at  a  vital 
point — the  Senate  was  about  to  reject  it  ;  the  quick- 
sighted  and  sharp-witted  Phillips  detected  and 
pointed  out  the  mistake  ;  Sumner  rectified  it  ;  and 
the  amendment  was  saved.1 

On  March  4th,  1869,  "Jefferson  Davis"  Johnson 
vanished — U.  S.  Grant  appeared.  Thus  time  did 
what  the  politicians  failed  to  do, — turned  out  a  traitor 
and  installed  a  patriot. 

The  next  month,  amid  these  hopeful  signs  for  the 


1  Oliver  Johnson  says  he  had  this  from  an  ex-governor,  a  United 
States  Senator,  and  a  Cabinet  officer.  Vide  "  Garrison  and  his 
Times,"  p.  441. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  367 

negro,  Mr.  Phillips  turned  aside  for  a  moment  to 
advocate  a  kindred  cause.  With  Julia  Ward  Howe, 
he  went  before  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  to 
plead  for  female  suffrage.1  During  the  war  the  ab 
sorption  of  the  country  had  been  so  utter  that  the 
women's  movement  could  make  no  headway. 
"  Never  mind,"  said  Mr.  Phillips,  "  it  is  the  negro's 
hour."  The  words  lay  and  rankled  in  the  memory 
of  some  of  the  ladies,  who  accused  their  champion 
of  giving  precedence  to  one  reform  over  another — 
of  preferring  the  negro  to  the  ladies.  Had  the  charge 
been  true,  it  would  have  impeached  both  the  justice 
and  the  gallantry  of  the  alleged  culprit.  But  he 
proved  an  alibi.  In  a  communication  to  the  Woman  s 
Advocate,  he  defined  the  meaning  of  the  unobjection 
able  phrase,  and  stated  his  position  : 

"  I  have  always  given,  spoken,  and  printed  for  the  cause,  and 
am  doing  so  now.  When  I  said,  in  1861,  '  This  is  the  negro's 
hour,'  I  meant  in  the  sense  of  ripeness  :  as  July  is  '  the  grass's 
hour,'  and  as  October  is  '  the  apple's  hour.'  "  2 

In  another  article  which  appeared  in  the  same 
journal,  he  defended  his  course  in  advocating  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment,  even  though  it  ignored  female 
suffrage  : 

"  Every  change  large  enough  to  serve  as  a  point  on  which  to 
rally  the  nation,  should  have  a  separate  discussion,  and  be  de 
cided  by  itself.  Mixing  up  separate  issues  is  like  good  Davie 
Deans's  attachment  to  the  Scottish  Covenant.  From  his  sick 
pillow  he  asked  if  the  doctor  had  subscribed  the  Covenant. 
'  That's  no  matter  now,'  said  his  child.  '  Indeed  it  is,'  cried  the 
old  Covenanter  ;  '  for  if  he  has  not,  never  a  drop  of  his  medicine 
shall  go  into  the  stomach  of  my  father's  son.'  "  8 


1  Vide  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxix.,  April  loth. 

2  Woman  s  Advocate,  September,  1869.  3  /£.,  July,  1869. 


368  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

He  held,  moreover,  that  woman  suffrage  would 
come,  if  at  all,  not  by  national  action,  but  by  State 
legislation — as  would  the  abolition  of  slavery,  had 
not  the  Rebellion  armed  the  Union  with  the  war 
power.1 

In  April,  also,  a  week  after  the  plea  for  female 
suffrage,  the  Agitator  again  addressed  the  Legisla 
ture  of  his  native  State  in  behalf  of  labor  reform  ; 
his  special  demand  being  for  the  appointment  of  a 
Labor  commission  to  examine  into  the  condition  of 
the  working  classes  of  the  Commonwealth.  This 
speech  was  able  and  triumphant.  The  commission 
was  appointed,  and  inaugurated  the  vast  and  far- 
reaching  agitation  of  the  Labor  question.2  Like  the 
prophet  he  was,  Mr.  Phillips  foresaw  the  speedy 
close  of  the  Anti-Slavery  epoch,  and  anticipated  the 
next  great  issue.  Close  observers  then  forecast  his 
future  from  his  present  course. 

April  was  a  busy  month  for  Mr.  Phillips.  In  ad 
dition  to  the  legislative  exertions  above  mentioned, 
he  turned  aside  to  address  a  Sunday  gathering  in 
Horticultural  Hall,  in  Boston,  on  a  religious  theme. 
"  Christianity  is  a  battle — not  a  dream,"  he  said,  and 
then  proceeded  to  vindicate  it  against  those  who 
would  make  it  a  mere  matter  of  ecclesiasticism,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  against  those  who  represented  it 
as  the  essence  of  posture  and  imposture,  on  the  other 
hand.  Christianity  he  regarded  as  the  spirit  of 
heaven  at  work  on  earth, — as  a  divine  influence  em 
bodied  in  human  life,  and  set  to  right  wrongs  and 
save  the  lost.  Christ  he  regarded  as  the  Author  and 


1  Woman" 's  Advocate,  July,  i8Cg. 

2  Fide  Standard t  vol.  xxx.,  April 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  369 

Finisher  of  redemption— His  career  as  the  model  of 
every  worthy  and  noble  life.  As  he  contended  so 
should  we  contend,  aiming1  to  make  God  known  to 
men.  He  considered  this  the  best  and  most  satis 
factory  of  his  utterances  in  this  line,  and  gladly  con 
fessed  his  own  indebtedness  to  the  Nazarene  for  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  a  disposition  to  serve  his 
kind.1 

In  May,  1869,  the  American  Anti- Slavery  Society 
met  in  New  York  City.  The  Fifteenth  Amendment 
was  in  process  of  ratification  by  the  States.  Victory 
was  in  the  air.  The  veterans  were  jubilant — but 
vigilant.  The  topic  was  prejudice  of  race.  Freder 
ick  Douglass  and  Senator  Henry  Wilson  were  among 
the  speakers.  Mr.  Phillips  acknowledged  that  he 
had  been  mistaken  in  his  estimate  of  President  Grant, 
whose  course  thus  far  had  been  praiseworthy,  and 
added  : 

"  I  want  a  right  hand  stern  as  death,  and  a  sword  rough- 
ground,  like  those  with  which  Wellington  went  into  the  battle 
of  Waterloo,  held  over  every  Southern  State  to  secure  that  peace 
which  promotes  industry."  2 

The  lecture  season  of  1869-70  Mr.  Phillips  spent 
as  usual,  mostly  in  the  cars,  going  to  and  from  his 
Lyceum  appointments.  He  thought  he  and  Mr. 
John  B.  Gough  could  claim  to  be  the  great  Ameri 
can  travellers.  'I  know,"  said  he,  "every  loco 
motive,  every  conductor,  and  the  exact  depth  of  the 
mud  in  every  road  in  the  country."  In  one  of  his 
lectures  he  referred  to  the  Garrison  mob  of  1835. 


1  A  synopsis  of  this  important  address  may  be  found  in  the  Anti~ 
Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxx.,  April  I7th. 

2  Vide  Anti- Slavery  Standard ',  vol.  xxx.,  No.  3. 


3/O  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  reference  provoked  Colonel  Theodore  Lyman, 
the  son  of  the  mayor  who  figured  discreditably  in 
the  riot,  to  rush  into  print  in  defence  of  his  father. 
The  orator  respected  Colonel  Lyman's  filial  feeling, 
but  nevertheless  vindicated  the  truth  of  history. 
After  a  vivid  statement  of  the  facts,1  he  said  in  his 
rejoinder  : 

"Twenty  years  ago,  I  affirmed,  'The  time  will  come  when 
sons  will  deem  it  unkind  to  remind  the  world  of  acts  their  fathers 
now  take  pride  in. '  That  hour  has  come.  I  refer  to  old  shames, 
not  to  insult  the  dead,  but  to  control  the  living.  Evil-doers  have 
one  motive  more  to  restrain  them,  if  they  can  be  made  to  feel 
that  their  children  will  blush  for  the  names  they  inherit.  I 
bring  these  things  up  to  show  that  reformers  have  terrible 
memories  ;  and  that  even  if  base  acts  win  office  and  plaudits  to 
day,  the  ears  of  the  actor's  children  will  tingle  at  the  report  of 
them  half  a  century  hence."  2 

March  3Oth,  1870,  is  an  ever-memorable  date.  It 
was  then  that  President  Grant  proclaimed  the  adop 
tion  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  which  provided 
that  neither  the  nation  nor  any  of  the  States  conv 
posing  it  should  abridge  the  right  of  any  citizen  to 
vote  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previous  condition 
of  servitude.  The  struggle  was  ended.  Freedom 
had  crowned  her  work.  Mr.  Phillips  read  the  proc 
lamation  in  Leroy,  N.  Y.  Sitting  down,  he  dashed 
off  a  few  jubilant  lines  to  his  alter  ego,  the  Rev.  John 
T.  Sargent,  of  Boston  : 

"  LEROY,  N.  Y.,  March  30,  1870. 
"  DEAR  JOHN  :  Let  me  exchange  congratulations  with  you. 


1  Vide  ante,  p.  51. 

2  Vide  Boston  Commonwealth,  November  isth,  1869. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  3/1 

Our  long  work  is  sealed  at  last.     The  nation  proclaims  Equal 
Liberty.     To-day  is  its  real  '  Birthday.' 
'  lo  !  Triumphe  ! ' 

Thank  God. 

"  Affectionately, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS."  > 

Of  course,  he  knew  that  legislation  cannot  bring- 
in  the  millennium.  Statutes  never  turn  sinners  into 
saints.  Prejudice  dies  hard.  It  must  be  lived  down 
and  shamed  out.  A  race,  like  an  individual,  has  to 
earn  respect.  A  student  of  history,  he  remembered 
how  the  adherents  of  the  exiled  Stuarts  pledged-the 
Pretender  in  secret  bumpers  in  the  Scotch  Highlands 
and  beyond  the  seas — how  Jacobitism  stained  the 
pages  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  a  hundred  years  after  the 
Revolution  of  1688  ;  and  how  the  ton  in  the  Fau 
bourg  St.  Germain  clung  to  the  sentiment  of  royalty, 
and  dreamed  of  the  French  lilies  while  living  under 
the  tricolor.  No  ;  Mr.  Phillips  was  aware  that  the 
negroes  would  have  to  face  prejudice  perhaps  for 
generations,  and  would  be  dwarfed  in  their  own  esti 
mation  and  in  the  feeling  of  the  community  by  the 
associations  of  their  servitude.  The  remedy  for  this 
could  be  found  only  in  time  and  achievement.  Mean 
while  it  was  much  that  the  law  was  color-blind.  The 
arena  was  now  open.  Manhood  might  attest  itself. 

The  mission  of  the  American  Anti- Slavery  Society 
was  fulfilled.  What  remained  save  to  meet  once 
more,  formally  announce  the  consummation,  and  dis 
band  ?  On  April  Qth,  1870,  the  Abolitionists,  with 
the  smell  of  smoke  on  their  garments,  held  their 
commemoration  at  Steinway  Hall,  in  New  York 


1  This  letter  is  in  MS. 


3/2  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

City.  The  attendance  was  immense,  the  rejoicing 
ecstatic.  Mr.  Phillips,  as  President  of  the  Society, 

was  in  the  chair.     Letters  Avere  read  from  a  host  of 

• 

coworkers,  including  Sumner,  Colfax,  Boutwell, 
Whittier,  and  Lydia  Maria  Child.1  Lucretia  Mott, 
O.  B.  Frothingham,  Robert  Purvis,  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  John  T.  Sargent,  and  many  others  of  the 
"  old  guard,"  were  grouped  on  the  platform.2  The 
streets  were  alive  with  colored  people,  marching  in 
vociferous  procession.  As  Mr.  Phillips  rose  to  say 
the  last  word,  he  received  the  ovation  of  his  life. 
He  referred  to  it  ever  after  as  ample  compensation 
for  all  his  toils,  and  bore  the  memory  of  the  meeting 
to  the  grave  as  the  chief  pleasure  of  his  career.  In 
speaking  of  what  he  owed  the  cause,  he  said: 

"  It  has  taught  me  faith  in  human  nature.  When  I  read  a 
sublime  fact  in  Plutarch,  of  an  unselfish  deed  in  a  line  of  poetry, 
or  thrill  beneath  some  heroic  legend,  it  is  no  longer  fairyland. 
I  have  seen  it  matched."  3 

In  closing,  he  added  : 

"  We  will  not  say  '  Farewell,'  but  '  all  hail.'  Welcome,  new 
duties  !  We  sheathe  no  sword.  We  only  turn  the  front  of  the 
army  upon  a  new  foe."  4 

At  the  business  meeting  which  followed,  the  So 
ciety  refused  to  die — it  adjourned  sine  die.* 

Thus,  with  a  befitting  celebration,  and  at  the  proper 
time,  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  passed  into 
history.  Had  it  dissolved  earlier  it  would  not  have 
fulfilled  its  pledge.  For  what  was  its  pledge  ?  It 
was  to  free  the  slave.  But  freedom  is  a  comprehen 
sive  word.  It  includes  not  merely  the  having 


{ Vide  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  vol.  xxx.,  April.    2  Ib.    3 16.    4  Ib.    5  Ib. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  373 

shackles  struck  from  our  wrists  and  ankles,  but  our 
possession  of  the  rights  and  privileges  enjoyed  by 
freemen — not  only  emancipation,  but  enfranchise 
ment.  Complete  liberty  was  only  just  now  attained. 

It  was  said  by  Mr.  Garrison  and  the  little  band 
who  withdrew  with  him,  after  the  passage  by  Con 
gress  of  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  that  the  rest 
could  be  gotten  through  other  agencies.  Perhaps 
so  ;  nevertheless  what  became  of  their  pledge  in  that 
organization  to  contend  for  the  freedom  of  the 
blacks  ?  Besides,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  they  might 
likewise  have  excused  their  desertion  at  any  other 
hour  after  the  grand  political  rally  for  freedom.  The 
peculiar  excellence  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery 
Society  was  that  it  conducted  a  moral  agitation, — 
that  it  stood  outside  of  sects  and  parties  as  their 
critic  and  inspirer, — that  it  held  up,  amid  compro 
mises  and  compromisers,  the  ideal  of  absolute  jus 
tice, — that  it  refused  to  be  satisfied  with  anything 
else  or  less.  This  function  was  never  more  essential 
than  during  the  four  years  from  1866  to  1870  ;  and 
it  was  never  more  magnificently  subserved.  All 
honor  to  the  faithful  men  and  women  who  held  to 
gether  not  only  with  Canaan  in  sight,  but  until  they 
Avere  mustered  out  in  the  peace  and  plenty  of  the 
promised  land.  '  Wolfe  died,"  wrote  Sumner,  "  in 
the  arms  of  victory  ;  and  such  is  the  fortune  of  your 
noble  society."  ' 

Of  the  personal  services  of  Mr.  Phillips  during 
these  years  when  the  fruits  of  the  war  were  to  be 
secured,  it  is  impossible  to  speak  extravagantly. 


1  Letter  to  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  at  this  commemora 
tive  meeting.      Vide  Standard^  vol.  xxx.,  April. 


374  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

His  position  as  President  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  gave  him,  what  Mr.  Garrison  now 
lacked, — a  distinctive  platform.  The  former  leader 
was  lost  in  the  crowd.  The  new  chief  stood  out  in 
clean-cut  prominence.  His  speeches  were  events. 
He  gave  the  country  a  succession  of  electric  shocks. 
Injustice,  was  stunned.  Liberty  was  reanimated. 
He  watched  every  move  of  the  slippery  gamesters 
at  Washington  with  unflagging  vigilance,  criticising, 
suggesting,  analyzing,  insisting  ;  and  by  directing 
universal  attention  to  the  game,  made  them  play  fair 
and  square.  "  More  than  to  any  other,  more  than 
to  all  others,"  said  Senator  Henry  Wilson,  "the 
colored  people  owe  it  that  they  were  not  cheated 
out  of  their  citizenship  after  emancipation,  to  Wen 
dell  Phillips."  J 

The  successful  Abolitionist  found  it  difficult  to 
realize  his  victory.  It  seemed  too  good  to  be  true. 
On  May  4th,  1870,  a  meeting  was  held  in  the  Tre- 
mont  Temple,  in  Boston,  at  which  he  expressed  this 
feeling  and  announced  his  conviction  that  he  was  not 
dreaming.  He  was  asked  to  introduce  the  new 
colored  senator  from  Georgia,  Mr.  Revels,  who  now 
occupied  the  seat  of  Jefferson  Davis  !  In  fulfilling 
the  grateful  duty,  he  said  : 

"  You  remember  when  we  were  children  and  read  the  '  Ara 
bian  Nights,'  that  after  some  gorgeous  description  of  crests  of 
light  and  cimeters  of  gold  and  crowns  of  gems,  the  Caliph 
clapped  his  hands  and  the  dream  burst — we  were  sitting  on  the 
cold  ground.  I  felt,  as  I  sat  behind  Senator  Revels,  like  clap 
ping  my  hands  to  see  whether  the  scene  would  change — whether 
it  was  all  a  fairy  mistake.  I  could  hardly  realize  that  fifteen 
hundred  people  had  come  to  Tremont  Temple  to  see  a  senator  of 


1  Letter  to  Charles  Sumner,  April  igth,  1870  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  375 

that  race  so  long  victimized.  I  was  in  Western  New  York  when 
the  proclamation  of  the  ratified  Fifteenth  Amendment  came  at 
night.  With  the  gray  light  of  the  morning  I  sprang  to  my  feet 
to  see  if  there  was  really  a  proclamation.  I  should  like  to  feel 
Ihe  senator  to  assure  myself  that  he  is  flesh  and  blood. 

14  At  the  Lovejoy  Meeting,  in  1837,  the  Attorney-General  of 
Massachusetts  said  the  idea  of  taking  the  chains  off  these  negroes 
was  like  letting  loose  the  hyenas.  Gentlemen  of  Boston,  I  intro 
duce  to  you  a  hyena  !  Well,  then,  later  Senator  Toombs  told  us 
that,  if  we  ever  dared  to  fire  a  gun,  he  would  call  the  roll  of  his 
slaves  on  Bunker  Hill.  Behold  the  first  one  that  has  answered 
— a  senator  of  the  United  States."  l 

It  was  in  1870,  too,  that  Italy  realized  the  dream 
of  centuries  and  achieved  her  unity,  with  Rome  as 
the  head  of  the  reanimated  body-politic.  The  cos 
mopolitan  soul  of  Wendell  Phillips  was  almost  as 
much  gratified  by  the  success  of  the  Italian  liber 
ators  as  he  was  by  the  crowning  of  his  own  work. 
When  a  warm  invitation  reached  him  to  celebrate 
the  auspicious  occurrence  with  the  Italians  in  New 
York  City,  he  made  an  effort  to  attend  ;  but  that 
failing,  he  wrote  a  jubilant  letter  which  was  read 

amid  loud  plaudits  : 

"  BOSTON,  October  27. 

"  At  all  times,  the  fate  of  Rome  has  been  of  utmost  interest. 
Every  scholar,  every  lover  of  art,  every  student  of  jurisprudence, 
every  apostle  of  liberty,  remembers  that,  after  leading  the  old 
world,  Rome  guarded  its  treasures  across  the  gulf  of  the  middle 
and  troubled  ages.  To  every  lover  of  the  past  and  every  ser 
vant  of  the  future  it  seems  natural  to  call  Italy  '  My  Country.' 
Three  centuries  ago  she  inspired  modern  civilization.  In  this 
generation  the  battle  for  European  liberty  has  centred  on 
Rome.  At  last  she  opens  her  gates  to  the  nineteenth  century. 

"  Congratulations  to  Garibaldi  and  Mazzini.     They  behold  the 


1  Vide  Moncure  D.  Conway's  article  on  Wendell  Phillips,   in  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  London,  vol.  viii.,  p.  64  sq. 


376  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

morning.     What  will  the  noon  be  ?     Nothing  less  than  Europe 
a  brotherhood  of  republics. 

"  Kings,  like  other  spectres,  will  vanish  at  the  cock-crowing. 

"  May  the  glory  and  service  of  Rome  in  this  new  epoch  tran 
scend  her  '  trebly  hundred  triumphs  '  and  all  the  splendor  of  the 
age  of  Leo. 

"  Fraternally, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS."  1 

The  friends  of  Mr.  Phillips  had  long  desired  him 
to  sit  for  a  picture  or  bust.  He  disliked  anything 
of  the  sort  ;  but  at  last  consented  to  permit  Mr. 
Martin  Milmore,  a  sculptor  who  had  a  genius  for 
portraiture,  to  reproduce  his  features.  The  sculptor 
was  over  a  year  in  getting  the  mouth  in  satisfactory 
shape.  One  cold  winter  night  he  saw  in  the  Boston 
Transcript  that  Mr.  Phillips  was  to  speak  that  even 
ing  in  Chelsea.  He  went  over  without  taking  time 
to  go  home  for  an  overcoat.  As  he  sat  in  the  hall 
listening  to  the  orator  what  was  missing  came  to 
him  in  a  flash.  He  returned  to  his  studio  at  eleven 
o'clock,  uncovered  the  plaster,  and  worked  away 
until  past  midnight.  When,  he  met  Mr.  Phillips  the 
next  day  and  showed  him  the  result,  he  said  :  "You 
may  consider  your  work  as  done."  This,  also,  was 
in  1870.  Mr.  Milmore 's  bust  is  a  beautiful  Avork, 
and  his  chef  d'ceuvre.  '  I  put  my  soul  in  it,"  re 
marked  the  sculptor,  "  but,  after  all,  how  far  short  of 
the  original  it  is  !" 


1  Vide  The  National  Standard.  New  York,  November  I2th,  1870. 


III. 

. 

"  NEW  OCCASIONS  TEACH  NEW  DUTIES." 

AT  the  date  when  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  was 
adopted  (the  hammer  which  drove  the  last  nail  into 
the  coffin  of  negro  slavery),  Wendell  Phillips  was  in 
his  sixtieth  year.  Thus,  he  was  still  in  the  prime  of 
life.  His  correct  habits  had  preserved  his  bodily 
and  mental  powers  in  full  vigor.  His  .eye  was  as 
bright  and  sharp,  his  endurance  as  great,  his  nerves 
as  steady,  his  thinking  as  sinewy,  his  speech  as 
classic  as  in  early  manhood.  Time  had  only  ripened 
and  mellowed  without  impairing  his  faculties  at  any 
point. 

It  might  be  thought  that  his  hand-to-hand  grapple 
with  slavery,  thirty-three  years  long,  now  entitled 
him  to  a  victor's  repose.  His  old  friend,  Edmund 
Quincy,  acting  on  this  principle,  had  reverted  to  the 
life  of  elegant  leisure  from  which  the  Anti-Slavery 
movement  had  wrenched  him.  Mr.  Garrison,  rest 
ing  under  the  approaches  of  old  age,  appeared  in 
public  nowadays  only  as  impulse  stirred  him,  and 
while  continuing  to  watch  the  interests  of  the  freed- 
men,  and  to  advocate  the  causes  with  which  he  had 
identified  himself  in  the  past,  espoused  no  new  re 
forms.  Mr.  Phillips  disdained  the  conservatism 
which  usually  coats  men  with  moss  in  the  afternoon 
of  life.  This  was  partly  temperamental, — the  result 
of  robust  health,  but  came  more  from  principle.  He 


378  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

felt  this  life  to  be  a  battle-field,  not  a  couch.  He 
loved  to  repeat  the  words  which  Tocqueville  uttered 
when  Sumner  left  him  in  Europe  on  the  eve  of  re 
turning  home,  and  which  he  exemplified  :  "  Life  is 
neither  a  pain  nor  a  pleasure,  but  serious  business, 
which  it  is  our  duty  to  carry  through  and  conclude 
with  honor."  l  Accordingly,  he  said  gayly  to  a 
friend,  "  Now  that  the  field  is  won,  do  you  sit  by 
the  camp-fire,  but  I  will  put  out  into  the  under 
brush."2 

Mr.  Phillips  meant  what  he  said.  He  "  put  out." 
Retaining  all  his  former  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
his  old  clients,  the  negro  and  woman,  he  took 
on  new  interests  as  fast  as  these  disclosed  them 
selves.  Current  issues  had  a  fascination  for  him, 
—especially  if  they  had  any  moral  bearing.  He  de 
lighted,  too,  in  keeping  ahead  of  the  times,  and  in 
beckoning  the  age  up  and  on.  The  temperance 
question  had  from  the  start  a  warm  place  in  his  heart 
and  a  large  place  in  his  speech.  For  many  years  he 
had  been  a  total  abstainer.  His  own  practice  in  this 
regard  he  urged  others  to  adopt.  He  also  favored 
and  never  tired  of  publicly  pleading  for  prohibition 
as  the  only  adequate  remedy  for  tipsy  streets.  Now 
that  he  was  measurably  free  from  the  entanglements 
arising  from  slavery,  he  gave  this  question  ever- 
increasing  prominence  on  the  platform. 

Another  issue  which  at  once  enlisted  his  enthusi 
astic  co-operation  was  Labor  Reform.  This,  slavery 
being  abolished,  was  the  next  inevitable  battle. 
While  every  workingman  was  degraded  in  the  en- 


1  Phillips's  article  on  Sumner  in  Johnson1  s  Cyclopaedia. 
9  Curtis's  "  Oration  on  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  31. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  379 

slavement  of  the  colored  laborers  of  the  South,  it 
was  necessary  to  secure  enfranchisement  there  before 
contending  for  enlarged  opportunities  everywhere. 
The  law  must  acknowledge  manhood  before  it  could 
logically  concede  rights  and  privileges  which  pre 
suppose  manhood.  With  this  accomplished,  the  de 
mand  for  better  wages,  easier  hours,  more  comforts, 
and  the  erection  of  legal  barriers  against  the  greed 
of  employers  in  behalf  of  employes, — followed,  as  the 
day  follows  the  night. 

ManjT  of  the  old  Abolitionists  broke  down  at  this 
point.  They  saw  plainly  enough  the  enormity  of 
negro  slavery.  They  could  not  see  the  enormity  of 
wage-slavery.  That  guilt  was  the  wickedness  of  the 
slave  owners.  This  guilt  was  their  wickedness — 
would  affect,  if  they  acknowledged  it,  their  divi 
dends,  impeach  their  business  habits,  invade  their 
relations  to  their  "hands."  The  wealthier  among 
them  realized  the  immeasurable  difference  between 
meum  and  tuum.  When  their  former  coadjutor  began 
to  apply  the  principles  of  the  Anti-Slavery  re 
form  to  this  correlated  movement,  they  balked, 
and  accused  him  of  "  preaching  crusades  on  diffi 
cult  problems  which  he  had  never  seriously  stud 
ied." 

The  truth  is,  Mr.  Phillips  began  to  study  the  labor 
question  at  the  moment  when  he  took  up  Anti- 
Slavery.  The  one  necessitated  the  other.  Papers 
found  in  his  library  and  bearing  his  notes,  made  cer 
tainly  as  far  back  as  1840,  prove  it.  Among  these  is 
one  entitled  "  The  Slavery  of  Poverty,"  published 
fifty  years  ago — wonderfully  keen  and  suggestive, 
and  carried  on  in  a  dialogue  between  a  converted 
slave-holder  and  an  Abolitionist,  which  is  covered 


380  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

with  the  orator's  comments.1  He  followed  his  prin 
ciples  wherever  they  took  him.  A  logical  conclusion 
had  no  terrors  for  him.  In  England  there  is  an  inn 
called  "  The  Six  Alls."  On  the  sign  that  hangs  in 
front  stands  the  Queen,  in  her  robes  of  state,  and 
she  says  :  "  I  rule  all."  On  her  right  hand  is  a 
priest,  who  says  :  "  I  pray  for  all."  Below  him  is 
a  soldier,  who  says  :  "  I  fight  for  all."  On  her  left 
hand  is  a  lawyer,  who  says  :  "  I  plead  for  all."  Be 
low  him  is  a  doctor,  who  says  :  "  I  cure  all."  At 
the  very  bottom  stands  a  workingman  in  his  shirt 
sleeves,  grimy,  beaded  with  perspiration,  and  he 
says  :  "  I  pay  for  all  !"  Mr.  Phillips's  idea  was  that, 
since  the  workingman  paid  for  all,  he  was  entitled  to 
consideration.  What  created  capital  ?  Labor.  Very 
well  ;  then  give  labor  its  fair  proportion  of  profits. 
Make  legislation  guarantee  this. 

The  workingmen  received  their  renowned  ally 
with  enthusiasm.  They  made  him  their  standard- 
bearer,  and  fell  into  rank  under  the  banner  he  lifted. 
They  were  now  organized  in  Massachusetts  as  a 
separate  political  party  (the  Labor  party),  and  on 
September  8th,  1870,  their  State  Convention  nomi 
nated  Mr.  Phillips  for  Governor.  Four  days  earlier, 
the  Prohibition  Convention  conferred  on  him  the 
same  honor.  He  fully  represented  both  ideas,  and 
reluctantly  consented  to  enter  the  canvass  as  the  ex 
ponent  of  both.  He  knew  there  was  no  chance  for 
his  election.  Had  there  been,  he  would  not  have  ac 
cepted  the  joint  nominations.  The  canvass  would 


1  This  curious  pamphlet  now  rests  in  the  Boston  Public  Library, 
among  the  books,  etc.,  which  Mr.  Phillips  gave  that  institution  a  year 
or  two  before  his  death. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  381 

be  simply   a  protest  and  an  education — agitation  in 
the  shape  of  politics. 

At  the  Labor  Convention  the  orator  presided. 
He  drew  up  and  read  the  platform,  which  is  sub 
joined  as  his  "  confession  of  faith." 

"  We  affirm,  as  a  fundamental  principle,  that  labor,  the 
creator  of  wealth,  is  entitled  to  all  it  creates. 

"  Affirming  this,  we  avow  ourselves  willing  to  accept  the  final 
results  of  the  operation  of  a  principle  so  radical,  such  as  the 
overthrow  ot  the  whole  profit-making  system,  the  extinction  of 
all  monopolies,  the  abolition  of  privileged  classes,  universal 
education  and  fraternity,  perfect  freedom  of  exchange,  and,  best 
and  grandest  of  all,  the  final  obliteration  of  that  foul  stigma 
upon  our  so-called  Christian  civilization,  the  poverty  of  the 
masses.  Holding  principles  as  radical  as  these,  and  having 
before  our  minds  an  ideal  condition  so  noble,  we  are  still  aware 
that  our  goal  cannot  be  reached  at  a  single  leap.  We  take  into 
account  the  ignorance,  selfishness,  prejudice,  corruption,  and 
demoralization  of  the  leaders  of  the  people,  and,  to  a  large  ex 
tent,  of  the  people  themselves  ;  but  still,  we  demand  thai  some 
steps  be  taken  in  this  direction  :  therefore, — 

"  Resolved,  That  we  declare  war  with  the  wages  system, 
which  demoralizes  alike  the  hirer  and  the  hired,  cheats  both, 
and  enslaves  the  workingman  ;  war  with  the  present  system  of 
finance,  which  robs  labor,  and  gorges  capital,  makes  the  rich 
richer,  and  the  poor  poorer,  and  turns  a  republic  into  an  aris 
tocracy  of  capital  ;  war  with  these  lavish  grants  of  the  public 
lands  to  speculating  companies,  and,  whenever  in  power,  we 
pledge  ourselves  to  use  every  just  and  legal  means  to  resume  all 
such  grants  heretofore  made  ;  war  with  the  system  of  enriching 
capitalists  by  the  creation  and  increase  of  public  interest-bear 
ing  debts.  We  demand  that  every  facility,  and  all  encourage 
ment,  shall  be  given  by  law  to  co-operation  in  all  branches  of 
industry  and  trade,  and  that  the  same  aid  be  given  to  co-opera 
tive  efforts  that  has  heretofore  been  given  to  railroads  and  other 
enterprises.  We  demand  a  ten-hour  day  for  factory-work  as  a 
first  step,  and  that  eight  hours  be  the  working-day  of  all  persons 
thus  employed  hereafter.  We  demand,  that,  whenever  women 


382  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

are  employed  at  public  expense  to  do  the  same  kind  and  amount 
of  work  as  men  perform,  they  shall  receive  the  same  wages. 
We  demand  that  all  public  debts  be  paid  at  once  in  accordance 
with  the  terms  of  the  contract,  and  that  no  more  debts  be  cre 
ated.  Viewing  the  contract  importation  of  coolies  as  only  an 
other  form  of  the  slave-trade,  we  demand  that  all  contracts  made 
relative  thereto  be  void  in  this  country,  and  that  no  public  ship, 
and  no  steamship  which  receives  public  subsidy,  shall  aid  in 
such  importation."  l 

This  platform  he  proceeded  to  explain  and  enforce 
in  an  able  speech,  from  which  we  quote  a  single 
paragraph  : 

"  If  any  man  asks  me,  therefore,  what  value  I  place  upon  this 
movement,  I  should  say  it  is,  first,  the  movement  of  humanity  to 
protect  itself  ;  and,  secondly,  it  is  the  insurance  of  peace  ;  and, 
thirdly,  it  is  a  guarantee  against  the  destruction  of  capital.  We 
all  know  that  there  is  no  war  between  labor  and  capital, — that 
they  are  partners,  not  enemies, — and  their  true  interests  on  any 
just  basis  are  identical.  And  this  movement  of  ballot-bearing 
millions  is  to  avoid. the  unnecessary  waste  of  capital. 

"  Well,  gentlemen,  I  say  so  much  to  justify  myself  in  styling 
this  the  grandest  and  most  comprehensive  movement  of  the 
age."  (Applause.)  "* 

A  few  days  later  Mr.  Phillips  formally  accepted 
the  Labor  and  Prohibition  nominations  in  letters 
which  are  worthy  of  attention.  The  first  was  ad 
dressed  to  the  Labor  Reformers  : 

"  BOSTON,  September  12,  1870. 
Charles  Cowley,  Esq. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  You  send  me  notice  that  the  Labor  Reform 
party  of  Massachusetts,  which  met  at  Worcester  on  the  8th  inst., 
has  done  me  the  honor  to  nominate  me  for  the  office  of  Governor. 

"  I  have  no  wish  to  be  Governor  of  Massachusetts  :  and,  flat- 


1  Vide  "  The  Labor  Question,"  by  Wendell   Phillips.     Published 
by  Lee  &  Shepard,  Boston. 

2  Ib. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  $83 

tering  as  is  this  confidence,  I  thoroughly  dislike  to  have  my 
name  drawn  into  party  politics  ;  for  I  belong  to  no  political 
party.  But  I  see  nothing  in  your  platform  from  which  I  dissent, 
and  the  struggle  which  underlies  your  movement  has  my  fullest 
and  heartiest  sympathy. 

"  You  are  kind  enough  to  say  that  my  life  has  been  given  to 
the  cause  of  workingmen.  The  adoption  of  the  Fifteenth 
Amendment  sweeps  in  all  races,  and  gives  the  cause  a  wider 
range.  Capital  and  labor — partners,  not  enemies — stand  face 
to  face,  in  order  to  bring  about  a  fair  division  of  the  common 
profits.  I  am  fully  convinced,  that  hitherto  legislation  has 
leaned  too  much — leaned  most  unfairly— to  the  side  of  capital. 
Hereafter  it  should  be  impartial.  Law  should  do  all  it  can  to 
give  the  masses  more  leisure,  a  more  complete  education,  better 
opportunities,  and  a  fair  share  of  profits.  It  is  a  shame  to  our 
Christianity  and  civilization,  for  our  social  system  to  provide  and 
expect  that  one  man  at  seventy  years  of  age  shall  be  lord  of 
many  thousands  of  dollars,  while  hundreds  of  other  men,  who 
have  made  as  good  use  of  their  talents  and  opportunities,  lean 
upon  charity  for  their  daily  bread.  Of  course,  there  must  be 
inequalities.  But  the  best  minds  and  hearts  of  the  land  should 
give  themselves  to  the  work  of  changing  this  gross  injustice, 
this  appalling  inequality.  I  feel  sure  that  the  readiest  way  to 
turn  public  thought  and  effort  into  this  channel,  is  for  the  work 
ingmen  to  organize  a  political  party.  No  social  question  ever 
gets  fearlessly  treated  here  till  we  make  politics  turn  on  it.  The 
real  American  college  is  the  ballot-box.  On  questions  like 
these,  a  political  party  is  the  surest  and  readiest,  if  not  the  only, 
way  to  stir  discussion,  and  secure  improvement. 

"If  my  name  will  strengthen  your  movement,  you  are  wel^~ 
come  to  it. 

"  Allow  me  to  add,  that,  though  we  work  for  a  large  vote,  we 
should  not  be  discouraged  by  a  small  one. 
"  Yours  truly, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS."  ' 

The  second  letter  was  an  acceptance  of  the  Pro 
hibition  nomination,  and  was,  in  part,  as  follows  : 

1  Vide  Boston  daily  papers  of  September  1310,  1870. 


384  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

"  BOSTON,  September  13,  1870. 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  no  wish  to  be  Governor  of  Massachu 
setts.  But,  to  rally  a  political  party,  disinterested  men  must 
give  years  to  the  work  of  enlightening  the  public  mind,  and 
organizing  their  ranks.  In  that  work  I  am  willing  to  be  used. 
My  inclinations  would  induce  me  to  decline  the  nomination  ; 
but  I  dare  not  do  so  in  view  of  the  vast  interests  involved  in  your 
movement,  which  call  on  each  one  of  us  to  make  every  sacrifice 
to  insure  its  success. 

"  No  one  supposes  that  law  can  make  men  temperate.  Occa 
sionally  some  sot  betrays  the  average  level  of  liquor  intelligence, 
by  fancying  that  to  be  our  belief  and  plan.  Temperance  men, 
on  the  contrary,  have  always  known  and  argued  that  we  must 
trust  to  argument,  example,  social  influence,  and  religious  prin 
ciple,  to  make  men  temperate.  But  law  can  shut  up  those  bars 
and  dram-shops  which  facilitate  and  feed  intemperance,  which 
double  our  taxes,  make  our  streets  unsafe  for  men  of  feeble  reso 
lution,  treble  the  peril  to  property  and  life,  and  make  the  masses 
tools  in  the  hands  of  designing  men  to  undermine  and  cripple 
law. 

"The  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  rests  with  each  man's  dis 
cretion.  But  the  trade  in  them  comes  clearly  within  the  control 
of  law.  Many  considerations — and  among  them  the  safety  and 
success  of  republican  institutions — bid  us  put  forth  the  full  power 
of  the  law  to  shut  up  dram-shops.  We  have  never  yet  ruled  a 
great  city  on  the  principle  of  self-government.  Republican  in 
stitutions,  undermined  by  intemperance,  are  obliged  to  confess 
that  they  have  never  governed  a  great  city  here,  on  the  basis  of 
universal  suffrage,  in  such  way  as  to  preserve  order,  protect  life, 
and  secure  free  speech. 

"  New  York,  ruled  by  drunkards,  is  proof  of  the  despotism  of 
the  dram-shop.  Men  whom  murderers  serve  that  they  may 
escape,  and  because  they  have  escaped  the  gallows,  rule  that 
city.  The  ribald  crew  which  holds  them  up  could  neither  stifle 
its  own  conscience,  nor  rally  its  retinue,  but  for  the  help  of  the 
grog-shop.  A  like  testimony  comes  from  the  history  of  our  other 
great  cities.  State  laws  are  defied  in  their  streets  ;  and  by 
means  of  the  dram-shop,  and  the  gilded  saloons  of  fashionable 
hotels,  their  ballot-box  is  in  the  hands  of  the  criminal  classes,— 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  385 

of  men  who  avowedly  and  systematically  defy  the  laws.     Indeed, 
this  is  the  case  in  Boston. 

"  Since  your  nomination  was  made,  I  have  been  honored  with 
another  by  the  workingmen  of  Massachusetts.  Their  cause  is 
a  powerful  ally  of  yours.  Whatever  lifts  the  masses  to  better 
education  and  more  self-control,  and  secures  them  their  full 
rights,  helps  the  temperance  cause.  Indeed,  theirs  is  a  radical 
movement,  broad  as  the  human  race,  and  properly  includes 
everything  that  elevates  man,  and  subjects  passion  and  tempta 
tion  to  reason  and  principle. 

"  But  the  only  bulwark  against  the  dangers  of  intemperance 
is  prohibition.  More  than  thirty  years  of  experience  have  con 
vinced  me,  and  as  wide  an  experience  has  taught  you,  that  this 
can  only  be  secured  by  means  of  a  distinct  political  organiza 
tion.  Thoroughly  as  I  dislike  to  have  my  name  used  in  a  politi 
cal  canvass,  I  do  not  feel  that  I  have  the  right  to  refuse  its  use 
if  you  think  it  will  strengthen  your  party. 

"  I  am,  very  respectfully  yours, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS."  l 

In  the  ensuing-  election,  the  Labor  and  Prohibition 
candidate  received  over  twenty  thousand  votes. 
Thus  both  questions  were  launched  and  afloat  in  the 
Old  Bay  State. 


1  Vide  Boston  daily  papers  of  September  I4th,  1870. 


IV. 

LIVING  ISSUES. 

IT  is  not  enough  to  be  ready  to  go  where  duty 
calls.  A  man  should  stay  around  where  he  can  hear 
the  call.  In  morals,  practice  is  the  test  of  con 
science.  There  never  lived  one  who  put  his  con 
duct  closer  to  his  principles,  whose  ear  was  keener  to 
hear,  and  whose  hand  was  readier  to  do,  than  Wen 
dell  Phillips.  This  was  his  favorite  text,  when  his 
friends  expostulated  with  him,  and  urged  him  to 
tone  down  his  absolute  truth  :  "  Whether  it  be  right 
in  the  sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  rather  than 
unto  God,  judge  ye."  He  ne'ver  scrupled  to  break 
a  friendship,  and  he  constantly  did  it  when  it  would 
have  dissuaded  him  from  obeying  a  call  to  announce 
a  right  and  denounce  a  wrong.  It  was  both  amusing 
and  painful  to  observe  how  former  adherents  fell 
away  from  him  because  he  believed  in  Benjamin 
F.  Butler. 

This  gentleman  was  the  bete  noir  of  Massachusetts 
respectability.  As  the  old  Federalists  were  wont 
to  frighten  their  children  to  sleep  by  crooning 
Thomas  Jefferson,  so  Beacon  Hill  and  State  wStreet, 
in  Boston,  made  a  bugaboo  of  Butler,  in  the  de 
cade  between  1870  and  1880.  The  man  in  the  play 
said  to  his  rival  :  "  Sir,  your  conduct,  past,  present, 
and  future,  is  excessively  disagreeable  !"  so  the  kid- 
gloved  and  cologne-water  magnates  of  the  Bay  State 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  387 

could  see  nothing  to  commend  in  what  the  noted 
attorney  had  done,  was  doing,  or  proposed  to  do. 

Mr.  Phillips  had  known  Butler  from  a  boy.  His 
Pro-Slavery  course  before  the  war  was  hateful.  His 
war  record,  especially  in  his  civil  acts,  was  grand. 
By  coining  the  word  4<  contraband,"  he  had  practi 
cally  emancipated  thousands  of  slaves  before  Lincoln 
dreamed  of  emancipation.  By  his  administration  in 
New  Orleans  he  had  taught  the  Crescent  City  both 
manners  and  morals.  And  now  he  had  joined  and 
was  serving  the  Labor  movement,  which  his  un 
rivalled  executive  ability  promised  to  organize,  and 
his  leadership  of  the  bar  gave  him  the  means  of 
legally  intrenching.  Himself  a  man  of  nerve,  he  ad 
mired  the  General's  pluck,  dash,  vigor.  The  two 
went  into  partnership  on  purpose  to  rattle  the  dry 
bones  in  Massachusetts.  They  did  it.  Under  their 
manipulation,  very  corpses  were  galvanized  into  the 
semblance  of  life. 

Mr.  Garrison  frowned  and  drew  away.  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  who  had  admired  Mr.  Phillips  for 
thirty  years,  no  longer  wished  to  see  him  in  Con 
cord.  Strange  !  Whether  right  or  wrong  regard 
ing  Butler,  no  one  doubted  the  honesty  of  the  ora 
tor's  attachment  to  him.  Yet  these  excellent  men 
broke  the  friendship  of  a  lifetime  on  a  point  of  dis 
agreement  in  judgment.  The  advocate  of  freedom, 
who  had  claimed  and  practised  the  largest  liberty 
of  expression  and  association  for  himself  ;  and  the 
advocate  of  toleration,  who  had  impeached  the  intol 
erance  of  New  England, — both  of  them  not  only  dis 
countenanced  (which  they  might  have  done  without 
inconsistency),  but  for  awhile  actually  cut  their  old- 
time  colleague.  How  little  the  great  are  !  How 


388  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

narrow  the  broad  !  Few  of  us  ever  discover  bigots 
among  those  who  agree  with  us.  On  his  part,  Phil 
lips,  grander  than  either,  went  on  loving  them — and 
held  on  in  his  course  without  swerving  a  hair's 
breadth. 

He  shocked  and  frightened  upper-tendom  by  an 
nouncing1  the  gubernatorial  candidature  of  General 
Butler  six  months  in  advance  of  the  occurrence. 
And  he  foretold  that  he  would  run  on  a  mixed  Re 
publican  and  Labor  platform.  The  prediction  was 
fulfilled.  The  campaign  was  one  of  the  most  excit 
ing  ever  known.  Phillips  spoke  often  and  power 
fully,  dwelling  upon  his  favorite  theme  ("  the 
twins,"  he  called  them),  Labor  and  Temperance  ; 
his  most  notable  utterance  being  at  a  vast  assemblage 
"  of  all  parties"  on  Salisbury  Beach,  with  the  Atlan 
tic  for  a  background,  a  September  sky  for  a  sound 
ing-board,  and  1871  for  a  punctuation  mark.  Touch 
ing  on  Labor,  he  said  : 

"  The  great  question  of  the  future  is  money  against  legisla 
tion.  My  friends,  you  and  I  shall  be  in  our  graves  long  before 
that  battle  is  ended  ;  and,  unless  our  children  have  more  pa 
tience  and  courage  than  saved  this  country  from  slavery,  republi 
can  institutions  will  go  down  before  moneyed  corporations. 
Rich  men  die  ;  but  banks  are  immortal,  and  railroad  corpora 
tions  never  have  any  diseases.  In  the  long  run  with  the  legis 
latures,  they  are  sure  to  win."  2 

Referring  to  Butler,  he  confessed  that  the  General 
"  had  done  many  things  he  would  have  asked  him 
to  do  differently,"  and  added  : 

"  But  I  will  tell  you  a  secret,  friends.  If  I  were  Pope  to-day, 
there  is  not  a  man  among  all  the  candidates,  Butler  included, 


1  To  a  Tribune  "  inteivievver''  in  the  summer  of  1871. 

2  Boston  daily  papers  of  September  I4th,  1871. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  389 

whom  I  would  make  a  saint  of, — not  one.  The  difficulty  is, 
saints  do  not  come  very  often  ;  and,  when  they  do  come,  it  is 
the  hardest  thing  in  the  world  to  get  them  into  politics.  I  don't 
believe,  that  if  you  could  import  a  saint,  brand-new  and  spot 
less,  from  heaven,  that  he  could  get  a  majority  in  the  State  of 
Massachusetts  for  any  office  that  has  a  salary."  ! 

The  contest  was  for  the  Republican  nomination, 
which  another  candidate  (Washburn)  finally  got  ; 
but  only  after  Phillips  and  Butler  had  shaken  the 
State  as  the  angels  shook  the  sheet  in  the  New  Testa 
ment. 

A  month  after  the  Republican  Convention  which 
threw  Butler  overboard  (October  3ist,  1871),  Mr. 
Phillips  delivered  in  the  Music  Hall,  Boston,  the 
most  elaborate  of  all  his  Labor  speeches.  Let  us  read 
a  few  passages.  In  opening,  he  painted  the  danger 
as  lying  in  incorporated  wealth  : 

"  Our  fathers,  when  they  forbade  entail  and  provided  for  the 
distribution  of  estates,  thought  they  had  erected  a  barrier  against 
the  money  power  that  ruled  England.  They  forgot  that  money 
could  combine  ;  that  a  moneyed  corporation  is  like  the  papacy, 
a  succession  of  persons  with  a  unity  of  purpose.  Now,  as  the 
land  of  England  in  the  hands  of  thirty  thousand  land-owning 
families  has  ruled  it  for  six  hundred  years,  so  the  corporations 
of  America  mean  to  govern  ;  and  unless  some  power  more  radi 
cal  than  ordinary  politics  is  found,  will  govern  inevitably.  The 
survival  of  republican  institutions  here  depends  upon  a  success 
ful  resistance  of  this  tendency.  The  only  hope  of  any  effectual 
grapple  with  the  danger  lies  in  rousing  the  masses,  whose  inter 
ests  Jj^  permanently  in  the  opposite  direction."  a 

orator  passed  to  answer  certain   criti- 


1  Boston  daily  papers  of  September  I4th,  1871. 

2  "The  Labor  Question,"  by  Wendell  Phillips,  published  by  Lee 
&  Shepard,  Boston,  p.  13. 


390  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

"  We  are  asked,  Why  hurry  into  politics  ?  We  see  the  bene 
fit  of  going  into  politics.  If  we  had  not  rushed  into  politics,  had 
not  taken  Massachusetts  by  the  four  corners  and  shaken  her, 
you  never  wauld  have  written  your  criticisms.  We  rush  into 
politics  because  politics  is  the  safety-valve.  We  could  discuss 
as  well  as  you  if  you  would  only  give  us  bread  and  houses,  fair 
pay  and  leisure,  and  opportunities  to  travel  :  we  could  sit  and 
discuss  the  question  for  the  next  fifty  years.  It's  a  very  easy 
thing  to  discuss,  for  a  gentleman  in  his  study,  with  no  anxiety 
about  to-morrow.  Why,  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  reign 
of  Louis  XV.  and  Louis  XVI.,  in  France,  seated  in  gilded 
saloons  and  on  Persian  carpets,  surrounded  with  luxury,  with 
the  products  of  India  and  the  curious  manufactures  of  ingenious 
Lyons  and  Rheims,  discussed  the  rights  of  man,  and  balanced 
them  in  dainty  phrases,  and  expressed  them  in  such  quaint 
generalizations  that  Jefferson  borrowed  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  from  their  hands.  There  they  sat,  balancing  and  dis 
cussing  sweetly,  making  out  new  theories,  and  daily  erecting  a 
splendid  architecture  of  debate,  till  the  angry  crowd  broke  open 
the  doors,  and  ended  the  discussion  in  blood.  They  waited  too 
long,  discussed  about  half  a  century  too  long.  You  see,  discus 
sion  is  very  good  when  a  man  has  bread  to  eat,  and  his  children 
all  portioned  off,  and  his  daughters  married,  and  his  house  fur 
nished  and  paid  for,  and  his  will  made  ;  but  discussion  is  very 
bad  when 

.   .   .   "  '  Ye  hear  the  children  weeping,  O  my  brothers  ! 
Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years  ;  ' 

discussion  is  bad  when  a  class  bends  under  actual   oppression. 
We  want  immediate  action."  l 

Another  criticism  touched  the  use  of  the  word 
labor. 

"  All  men  labor.  Rufus  Choate  and  Daniel  Webster  labor, 
say  the  critics.  Every  man  who  reads  of  the  Labor  question 
knows  that  it  means  the  movement  of  the  men  that  earn  their 
living  with  their  hands  ;  that  are  employed,  and  paid  wages  ; 


"  The  Labor  Question,"  pp.  14,  15. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  39! 

are  gathered  under  roofs  of  factories,  sent  out  on  farms,  sent 
out  on  ships,  gathered  on  the  walls.  In  popular  acceptation,  the 
working  class  means  the  men  that  work  with  their  hands,  for 
wages,  so  many  hours  a  day,  employed  by  great  capitalists  ; 
that  work  for  everybody  else.  Why  do  we  move  for  this  class  ? 
'Why,'  asks  a  critic,  'don't  you  move  for  all  workingmen  ? ' 
Because,  while  Daniel  Webster  gets  forty  thousand  dollars  for 
arguing  the  Mexican  claims,  there  is  no  need  of  anybody's 
moving  for  him.  While  Rufus  Choate  gets  five  thousand  dollars 
for  making  one  argument  to  a  jury,  there  is  no  need  of  moving 
for  him,  or  for  the  men  that  work  with  their  brains, — that  do 
highly  disciplined  and  skilled  labor,  invent,  and  write  books. 
The  reason  why  the  Labor  movement  confines  itself  to  a  single 
class  is  because  that  class  of  work  does  not  get  paid,  does  not 
get  protection.  Mental  labor  is  adequately  paid,  and  more  than 
adequately  protected.  It  can  shift  its  channels  :  it  can  vary 
according  to  the  supply  and  demand.  If  a  man  fails  as  a  min 
ister,  why,  he  becomes  a  railway  conductor.  If  that  doesn't  suit 
him,  he  turns  out,  and  becomes  the  agent  of  an  insurance-office. 
If  that  doesn't  suit,  he  goes  West,  and  becomes  governor  of  a 
Territory.  And  if  he  finds  himself  incapable  of  either  of  these 
positions,  he  comes  home,  and  gets  to  be  a  city  editor.  He 
varies  his  occupation  as  he  pleases,  and  doesn't  need  protec 
tion.  But  the  great  mass,  chained  to  a  trade,  doomed  to  be 
ground  up  in  the  mill  of  supply  and  demand,  that  work  so  many 
hours  a  day,  and  must  run  in  the  great  ruts  of  business, — they 
are  the  men  whose  inadequate  protection,  whose  unfair  share  of 
the  general  product,  claims  a  movement  in  their  behalf."  ' 

He  thus  describes  his  ideal  : 

"  My  ideal  of  civilization  is  a  very  high  one  ;  but  the  approach 
to  it  is  a  New  England  town  of  some  two  thousand  inhabitants, 
with  no  rich  man  and  no  poor  man  in  it,  all  mingling  in  the 
same  society,  every  child  at  the  same  school,  no  poor-house,  no 
beggar,  opportunities  equal,  nobody  so  proud  as  to  stand  aloof, 
nobody  so  humble  as  to  be  shut  out." 

With  reference  to  a  remedy,  he  thought  graded 
taxation  would  be  helpful. 

1  "  The  Labor  Question,"    pp.  16,  17. 


3Q2  WENDFLL   PHILLIPS. 

"  The  labor  of  yesterday,  capital,  is  protected  sacredly.  Not 
so  the  labor  of  to-day.  The  labor  of  yesterday  gets  twice  the 
protection  and  twice  the  pay  that  the  labor  of  to-day  gets.  Why 
is  it  not  entitled  to  an  equal  share  ? 

"  Are  you  quite  certain  that  capital — the  child  of  artificial 
laws,  the  product  of  society,  the  mere  growth  of  social  life — has 
a  right  to  only  an  equal  burden  with  labor,  the  living  spring  ? 
We  doubt  it  so  much  that  we  think  we  have  invented  a  way  to 
defeat  the  Pennsylvania  Central.  We  think  we  have  devised  a 
little  plan — Abraham  Lincoln  used  to  have  a  little  story — by 
which  we  will  save  the  Congress  of  the  nation  from  the  moneyed 
corporations  of  the  State.  When  we  get  into  power,  there  is 
one  thing  we  mean  to  do.  If  a  man  owns  a  single  house,  we 
will  tax  him  one  hundred  dollars.  If  he  owns  ten  houses  of  like 
value,  we  won't  tax  him  one  thousand  dollars,  but  two  thousand 
dollars.  If  he  owns  a  hundred  houses,  we  won't  tax  him  ten 
thousand  dollars,  but  sixty  thousand  dollars  ;  and  the  richer  a 
man  grows,  the  bigger  his  tax,  so  that  when  he  is  worth  forty 
million  dollars  he  shall  not  have  more  than  twenty  thousand  dol 
lars  a  year  to  live  on.  We'll  double  and  treble  and  quintuple  and 
sextuple  and  increase  tenfold  the  taxes,  till  Stewart  out  of  his 
uncounted  millions,  and  the  Pennsylvania  Central  out  of  its 
measureless  income,  shall  not  have  anything  more  than  a  mod 
erate  lodging  and  an  honest  table.  The  corporations  we  would 
have  are  those  of  associated  labor  and  capital, — co-operation."  l 

Mr.  Phillips  repeated  the  substance  of  this  speech 
in  Steinway  Hall,  New  York,  on  December  ;th, 
1871,  and  at  various  other  places  and  times  during 
that  winter.  Indeed,  he  intermingled  Temperance 
and  Labor  in  his  Lyceum  work  now,  as  he  had  Anti- 
Slavery  in  former  times.  And  outside  of  the 
Lyceum,  on  whatever  platform,  he  gladly  stood  to 
plead  for  the  relief  of  poverty.  Thus,  he  addressed 
the  International  Grand  Lodge  of  St.  Crispin  in 
April,  1872,  in  a  speech  only  second  in  importance 


'  The  Labor  Question,"  p.  23. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  393 

to  the  Music  Hall  speech  above  mentioned.  From 
this,  also,  we  extract  a  passage  or  two,  important  as 
showing  his  position  and  disclosing  his  methods  of 
treatment  : 

"  Let  me  tell  you  why  I  am  interested  in  the  Labor  question. 
Not  simply  because  of  the  long  hours  of  labor  ;  not  simply 
because  of  a  specific  oppression  of  a  class.  I  sympathize  with 
the  sufferers  ;  I  am  ready  to  fight  on  their  side.  But  1  look  out 
upon  Christendom,  with  its  three  hundred  millions  of  people  ; 
and  I  see,  that,  out  of  this  number  of  people,  one  hundred  mill 
ions  never  had  enough  to  eat.  Physiologists  tell  us  that  this 
body  of  ours,  unless  it  is  properly  fed,  properly  developed,  and 
carefully  nourished,  does  no  justice  to  the  brain.  You  cannot 
make  a  bright  or  good  man  in  a  starved  body  ;  and  so  this  one 
third  of  the  inhabitants  of  Christendom,  who  have  never  had 
food  enough,  can  never  be  what  they  should  be.  Now,  I  say 
that  the  social  civilization  which  condemns  every  third  man  in  it 
to  be  below  the  average  in  the  nourishment  God  prepared  for 
him,  did  not  come  from  above  :  it  came  from  below  ;  and,  the 
sooner  it  goes  down  the  better.  Come  on  this  side  of  the  ocean. 
You  will  find  forty  millions  of  people,  and  I  suppose  they  are  in 
the  highest  state  of  civilization  ;  and  yet  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say,  that,  out  of  that  forty  millions,  there  are  ten  millions,  at 
least,  who  get  up  in  the  morning  and  go  to  bed  at  night,  and 
spend  all  the  day  in  the  mere  effort  to  get  bread  enough  to  live. 
They  have  not  elasticity  enough  left  to  do  anything  in  the  way 
of  intellectual  or  moral  progress. 

"  I  take,  for  instance,  one  of  the  manufacturing  valleys  of 
Connecticut.  If  you  get  into  the  cars  there  at  6. 30  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  as  I  have  done,  yoli  will  finsk  getting-un  at  every  little 
station,  avscore  or  more  tof  laboring  men  and  women,  with  their 
dinner  in  "a  pail  ;  and  they  get  out  at  some  factory  that  is  already 
lighted  up.  Go  down  the  same  valley  about  7.30  in  the  evening, 
and  you  will  again  see  them  going  home.  They  must  have  got 
up  about  5.30;  they  are  at  their  work  until  nigh  upon  eight 
o'clock.  There  is  a  good,  solid  fourteen  hours.  Now,  there 
will  be  a  strong,  substantial  man,  like  Cobbett,  who  will  sit  up 
nights  studying,  and  who  will  be  a  scholar  at  last  among  them, 
perhaps  ;  but  he  is  an  exception.  The  average  man,  when  he 


394  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

gets  home  at  night,  does  not  care  to  read  an  article  from  the 
North  American,  nor  a  long  speech  from  Charles  Sumner. 
No  ;  if  he  can't  have  a  good  story,  and  a  warm  supper,  and  a 
glass  of  grog,  perhaps,  he  goes  off  to  bed.  Now,  I  say  that  the 
civilization  that  has  produced  this  state  of  things  in  nearly  the 
hundredth  year  of  the  American  Republic  did  not  come  from 
above. 

"  I  believe  in  the  temperance  movement.  Tarn  a  temperance 
man  of  nearly  forty  years'  standing  ;  and  I  think  it  one  of  the 
grandest  things  in  the  world,  because  it  holds  the  basis  of  sell- 
control.  Intemperance  is  the  cause  of  poverty,  I  know  ;  but 
there  is  another  side  to  that  :  poverty  is  the  cause  of  intemper 
ance.  Crowd  a  man  with  fourteen  hours'  work  a  day,  and  you 
crowd  him  down  to  a  mere  animal  life.  You  have  eclipsed  his 
aspirations,  dulled  his  tastes,  stunted  his  intellect,  and  made 
him  a  mere  tool,  to  work  fourteerj  hours,  and  catch  a  thought  in 
the  interval  ;  and,  while  a  man  in  a  hundred  will  rise  to  be  a 
genius,  ninety-nine  will  cower  down  under  the  circumstances. 
Now,  I  can  tell  you  a  fact.  In  London,  the  other  day,  it  was 
found  that  one  club  of  gentlemen,  a  thousand  strong,  spent 
twenty  thousand  dollars  at  the  club-house  during  the  year  for 
drink.  Well,  I  would  allow  them  twenty  thousand  dollars  more 
at  home  for  liquor,  making  in  all  forty  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
These  men  were  all  men  of  education  and  leisure  :  they  had 
books  and  paintings,  opera,  race-course,  and  regatta.  A  thou 
sand  men  down  in  Portsmouth  in  a  ship-yard,  working  under  a 
boss,  spent  at  the  grog-shops  of  the  place,  in  that  year,  eighty 
thousand  dollars,— double  that  of  their  rich  brethren.  What  is 
the  explanation  of  such  a  fact  as  that  ?  Why,  the  club-man  had 
a  circle  of  pleasures  and  of  company  :  the  operative,  after  he 
had  worked  fourteen  hours,  had  nothing  to  look  forward  to  but 
his  grog. 

"  That  is  why  I  say,  lift  a  man,  give  him  life,  let  him  work 
eight  hours  a  day,  give  him  the  school,  develop  his  taste  for 
music,  give  him  a  garden,  give  him  beautiful  things  to  see,  and 
good  books  to  read,  and  you  will  starve  out  those  lower  appe 
tites.  Give  a  man  a  chance  to  earn  a  good  living,  and  you  may 
save  his  life.  So  it  is  with  women  in  prostitution.  Poverty  is 
the  road  to  it  :  it  is  this  that  makes  them  the  prey  of  the  wealth 
and  the  leisure  of  another  class.  Give  a  hundred  men  in  this 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  395 

country  good  wages  and  eight  hours'  work,  and  ninety-nine  will 
disdain  to  steal.  Give  a  hundred  women  a  good  chance  to  get 
a  good  living,  and  ninety-nine  of  them  will  disdain  to  barter 
their  virtue  for  gold.  You  will  find  in  our  criminal  institutions 
to-day  a  great  many  men  with  big  brains,  who  ought  to  have 
risen  in  the  world, — perhaps  gone  to  Congress.  You  may  laugh, 
but  I  tell  you  the  biggest  brains  don't  go  to  Congress,  Now, 
take  a  hundred  criminals  :  ten  of  them  will  be  smart  men  ;  but 
take  the  remainder,  and  eighty  of  them  are  below  the  average, 
body  and  mind  :  they  were,  as  Charles  Lamb  said,  '  Never 
brought  up  ;  they  were  dragged  up.'  They  never  had  any  fair 
chance  :  they  were  starved  in  body  and  mind.  Now,  just  so 
long  as  you  hold  two  thirds  of  this  nation  on  such  a  narrow, 
superficial  line,  you  feed  the  criminal  classes."  l 

He  urged  upon  workingmen  the  vital  importance 
of  organization  and  said  : 

"  Now,  let  me  tell  you  where  the  great  weakness  of  an  asso 
ciation  of  workingmen  is.  It  is  that  it  cannot  wait.  It  does 
not  know  where  to  get  its  food  for  next  week.  If  it  is  kept  idle 
for  ten  days,  the  funds  of  the  society  are  exhausted.  Capital 
can  fold  its  arms,  and  wait  six  months  ;  it  can  wait  a  year.  It 
will  be  poorer,  but  it  does  not  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  purse. 
It  can  afford  to  wait ;  it  can  tire  you  out,  and  starve  you  out. 
And  what  is  there  against  that  immense  preponderance  of  power 
on  the  part  of  capital  ?  Simply  organization.  That  makes  the 
wealth  of  all  the  wealth  of  every  one.  So  I  welcome  organi 
zation.  I  do  not  care  whether  it  calls  itself  trades-union,  Cris 
pin,  international,  or  commune  :  anything  that  masses  up  a  unit 
in  order  that  they  may  put  in  a  united  force  to  face  the  organi 
zation  of  capital,  anything  that  does  that,  I  say  Amen  to  it.  One 
hundred  thousand  men  !  It  is  an  immense  army.  I  do  not  care 
whether  it  considers  chiefly  the  industrial  or  the  political  ques 
tions  ;  it  can  control  the  nation  if  it  is  in  earnest.  The  reason 
why  the  Abolitionists  brought  the  nation  down  to  fighting  their 
battle  is  that  they  were  really  in  earnest,  knew  what  they  wanted, 
and  were  determined  to  have  it.  Therefore  they  got  it.  The 
leading  statesmen  and  orators  of  the  day  said  they  would  never 


1  "Labor  Question, "  pp.  29-32. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

urge  Abolition  ;  but  a  determined  man  in  a  printing-office  said 
that  they  should,  and — they  did  it, 

"  And  so  it  is  with  this  question  exactly.  Brains  govern  this 
country  ;  and  I  hope  to  God  the  time  will  never  come  when 
brains  won't  govern  it,  for  they  ought  to.  And  the  way  in 
which  you  can  compel  the  brains  to  listen  and  to  attend  to  you 
on  the  question  of  labor,  actually  to  concentrate  the  intellectual 
power  of  the  nation  upon  it,  is  by  gathering  together  by  hun 
dreds  of  thousands,  no  matter  whether  it  be  on  an  industrial 
basis  or  a  political  basis,  and  say  to  the  nation,  '  We  are  the 
numbers,  and  we  will  be  heard,'  and  you  may  be  sure  that  you 
will."1 

While  thus  occupied  on  the  platform  the  inde 
fatigable  reformer  was  equally  busy  with  his  pen. 
As  a  sample  of  his  work  for  temperance,  take  this 
striking  double  picture,  which  he  sent  to  one  of  the 
journals  of  the  day,  and  called  "  Two  Sides  of  One 
Canvas"  : 

"  One  beautiful  afternoon  in  August,  there  came  to  me  the 
heart-broken  wife  of  a  State-prison  convict.  We  tried  to  plan 
for  his  pardon  and  restoration  to  home  and  the  world.  It  was 
a  very  sad  case.  He  was  the  only  surviving  son  of  a  very  noble 
man — one  who  lived  only  to  serve  the  poor,  the  tempted,  and 
the  criminal.  All  he  had,  all  he  was,  he  gave  unreservedly  to 
help  thieves  and  drunkards.  His  house  was  their  home.  His 
name  their  bail  to  save  them  from  prison.  His  reward  their 
reformation.  It  was  a  happy  hour  to  hear  him  tell  of  the  hun 
dreds  he  had  shielded  from  the  contamination  and  evil  example 
of  prisons,  and  of  the  large  proportion  he  had  good  reason  to 
believe  permanently  saved.  Out  of  hundreds,  he  once  told  me, 
only  two  left  him  to  pay  their  bail,  forfeited  by  neglect  to  show 
themselves  in  court  according  to  agreement — only  two  ! 

"  Bred  under  such  a  roof,  the  son  started  in  life  with  a  gen 
erous  heart,  noble  dreams,  and  high  purpose.  Ten  years  of 
prosperity,  fairly  earned  by  energy,  industry,  and  character, 
ended  in  bankruptcy,  as  is  so  often  the  case  in  our  risky  and 


1  "  The  Labor  Question,"  pp.  26,  27. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  397 

changing  trade  ;  then  came  a  struggle  for  business,  for  bread — 
temptation— despair — intemperance.  He  could  not  safely  pass 
the  open  doors  that  tempted  him  to  indulgence,  forgetfulness, 
and  crime.  How  hard  his  wife  wrought  and  struggled  to  save 
him  from  indulgence,  and  then  to  shield  him  from  exposure  ! 
How  long  wife,  sister,  and  friends  labored  to  avert  conviction 
and  the  State  prison  !  '  I  would  spare  him  gladly,'  wrote  the 
prosecuting  attorney,  '  if  he  would  stop  drinking.  He  shall 
never  go  to  prison  if  he  will  be  a  sober  man.  But  all  this 
wretchedness  and  crime  comes  from  rum.' 

"  Manfully  did  the  young  fellow  struggle  to  resist  the  appetite. 
Again  and  again  did  he  promise,  and  keep  his  promise  perhaps 
a  month,  then  fall.  He  could  not  walk  the  streets  and  earn  his 
bread  soberly  while  so  many  open  doors — opened  by  men  who 
sought  to  coin  gold  out  of  their  neighbors'  vices— lured  him  to 
indulgence.  So,  rightfully,  the  State  pressed  on,  and  he  went 
to  prison.  An  honored  name  disgraced,  a  loving  home  broken 
up,  a  wide  circle  of  kindred  sorely  pained,  a  worthy,  well-mean 
ing  man  wrecked.  Sorrow  and  crime  '  all  comes  from  rum,' 
says  the  keen-sighted  lawyer. 

"  As  I  parted  from  the  sad  wife  on  my  door-step,  I  looked 
beyond,  and  close  by  the  laughing  sea  stood  a  handsome  cot 
tage.  The  grounds  were  laid  out  expensively  and  with  great 
taste.  Over  the  broad  piazza  hung  lazily  an  Eastern  hammock, 
while  all  around  were  richly  painted  chairs  and  lounges  of  every 
easy  and  tempting  form.  Overhead  were  quaint  vases  of  beauti 
ful  flowers,  and  the  delicious  lawn  was  bordered  with  them. 
On  the  lawn  itself  gayly  dressed  women  laughed  merrily  over 
croquet,  and  noisy  children  played  near.  A  span  of  superb 
horses  pawed  the  earth  impatiently  at  the  gate,  while  gay  salu 
tations  passed  between  the  croquet-players  and  the  fashionable 
equipages  that  rolled  by.  It  was  a  scene  of  beauty,  comfort, 
taste,  luxury,  and  wealth.  All  came  from  rum.  Silks  and  dia 
monds,  flowers  and  equipage,  stately  roof  and  costly  attend 
ance,  all  came  from  rum.  The  owner  was  one  who,  in  a  great 
city,  coined  his  gold  out  of  the  vices  of  his  fellow-men. 

"  To  me  it  was  a  dissolving  view.  I  lost  sight  of  the  gay 
women,  the  frolicsome  children,  the  impatient  horses,  and  the 
ocean  rolling  up  to  the  lawn.  I  saw  instead  the  pale  convict  in 
his  cell  twelve  feet  by  nine  ;  the  sad  wife  going  from  judge  to 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

attorney,  from  court  to  Governor's  Council,  begging  mercy  for 
her  overtempted  husband.  I  heard  above  the  children's  noise, 
the  croquet,  laugh,  and  the  surf  waves,  that  lawyer's  stern 
reason  for  exacting  the  full  penalty  of  the  law — all  this  comes 
from  rum. 

"  '  Woe  unto  him  that  giveth  his  neighbor  drink.  Woe  unto 
him  that  buildeth  his  house  by  unrighteousness  and  his  cham 
bers  by  wrong,  for  the  stone  shall  cry  out  of  the  wall,  and  the 
beam  out  of  the  timber  shall  answer  it.'  " 


V. 

GRANT — GREELEY — FROUDE. 

THE  Presidential  campaign  of  1872  was  one  of  the 
most  curious  on  record.  Grant  was  the  Republican 
nominee.  The  Democrats  in  their  despair  selected 
Horace  Greeley,  always  their  bitter  foe,  but  now 
considered  available  because  he  had  quarrelled  with 
Grant  and  kicked  over  the  party  traces.  Stranger 
yet,  Senator  Sumner,  also  at  odds  with  the  Presi 
dent,  had  gone  over  to  the  support  of  Greeley,  and 
was  appealing  widely  to  the  colored  voters  to  sup 
port  the  "  Copperhead"  candidate,  on  the  ground 
that  he  was  an  Abolitionist.  Mr.  Sumner  and  Mr. 
Motley  had  been  ill-used  by  the  Administration. 
Sumner  had  been  deprived  of  his  Chairmanship  of 
the  Foreign  Affairs  Senatorial  Committee,  because 
of  his  opposition  to  Grant's  proposed  acquisition  of 
San  Domingo  ;  and  Motley  had  been  recalled  from 
England,  where  he  had  been  the  American  Minister, 
on  account  of  his  friendship  with  Sumner  and  as  a 
stab  at  the  Massachusetts  senator.  Both  Sumner 
and  Motley  were  old  and  close  friends  of  Mr.  Phil 
lips,  who  keenly  felt  and  resented  their  ill-treatment. 
Later  he  defended  both,  and  set  their  wrongs  right 
before  the  public.  At  present,  while  smarting  under 
the  injustice  done  them,  he  nevertheless  supported 
Grant's  candidature  and  opposed  Greeley's,  on  ac 
count  of  the  policies  and  parties  in  competition. 


400  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

In  the  summer  of  1872,  in  response  loan  invitation 
from  the  colored  people  of  Massachusetts  to  address 
them  on  the  question  of  the  hour,  and  help  them 
resolve  their  doubts  caused  by  their  inclination  to 
vote  the  Republican  ticket  and  their  respect  for  Mr. 
Sumner,  who  urged  them  toward  Greeley, — Mr. 
Phillips  wrote  a  letter  analyzing  the  situation  and 
giving  the  asked-for  advice.  It  was  in  his  happiest 
vein,  and  is  subjoined  as  a  vivid  portrayal  of  that 
anomalous  canvass  : 

"  My  judgment  is  the  exact  opposite  of  Mr.  Sumner's.  I  think 
every  loyal  man,  and  especially  every  colored  man,  should  vote 
for  General  Grant,  and  that  the  nation  and  your  race  are  only 
safe  in  the -hands  of  the  old,  regular  Republican  party. 

"  Some  may  ask  how  I  come  to  think  thus,  when  I  was  one  of 
the  few  loyal  men  who  protested,  in  1868,  against  Grant's  nomi 
nation,  and  seeing  that  I  have  so  often  affirmed  that  the  Repub 
lican  party  has  outlived  its  usefulness. 

"  Gentlemen,  the  reasons  which  lead  me  to  my  present  opin 
ion,  in  spite  of  my  former  views,  ought  to  give  my  judgment 
more  weight  with  you.  I  am  forced  by  late  developments  to  my 
present  position. 

"  You  remember,  that,  in  1868,  I  emphatically  denied  General 
Grant's  fitness  for  the  Presidency.  Derided  by  the  Republican 
press,  I  went  from  city  to  city  protesting  against  his  election. 
In  private,  with  Mr.  Sumner  and  others,  I  argued  long  and 
earnestly  against  the  risk  of  putting  such  a  man  into  such  an 
office.  At  that  time  they  saw  only  his  great  merits,  and  sup 
ported  him  heartily.  The  defects  of  his  Administration  are  no 
surprise  to  me.  I  may  say,  without  boasting,  that  I  prophesied 
those  defects.  I  do  not  wish  to  hide  them  to-day.  I  entirely 
agree  with  Mr.  Sumner  as  to  the  grave  fault  and  intolerable  in 
solence  of  the  Administration  in  the  San  Domingo  matter.  I 
think  the  frequent  putting  of  relatives  into  office  highly  objection 
able,  and  the  sad  career  of  Webster  is  warning  enough  against 
any  man  in  public  life  venturing  to  accept  gifts  from  living  men. 
These  and  other  defects  are  no  surprise  to  me.  The  eminent 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  4<DI 

merits  of  General  Grant's  Administration  are,  I  confess,  a  sur 
prise  to  me. 

"  His  original  and  Christian  policy  toward  the  Indians  is  ad 
mirable,  and,  standing  alone,  is  enough. to  mark  him  a  states 
man.  His  patience  amid  innumerable  difficulties  in  our  foreign 
relations  is  wonderful  in  one  bred  a  soldier.  The  aid  the  Ad 
ministration  has  given  to  the  industrial  and  financial  prosperity 
of  the  country  is  a  great  merit.  General  Grant's  prompt  inter 
ference  for  justice  to  workingmen  in  defiance  of  those  about  him, 
relative  to  the  execution  of  the  eight-hour  law,  I  shall  always 
remember.  The  crime  of  the  Republican  party  in  tolerating 
the  Ku-Klux  is  flagrant.  But  the  President  and  his  immediate 
friends  deserve  our  gratitude  for  their  efforts  and  success  in  that 
matter.  His  services  to  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  I  shall  never 
forget.  When  some,  even  of  the  foremost  Abolitionists,  doubted, 
and  were  lukewarm,  I  wrote  to  Senator  Wilson,  asking  him  to 
urge  General  Grant  to  put  three  lines  into  his  first  message  com 
mending  that  measure  to  Congress  and  the  country.  The  an 
swer  came  back,  '  You  are  too  late.  General  Grant's  message 
was  finished  before  your  note  arrived,  and  the  recommendation 
you  wish  is  in  it.'  It  still  remains  lamentably  true,  that  the 
colored  man  has  no  full  recognition  at  the  North,  and  no 
adequate  protection  in  the  South— shame  to  the  Administration 
and  to  the  Republican  party  !  But  his  friends  may  fairly  claim 
that,  during  the  last  three  years,  the  negro  has  steadily  gained 
in  the  safe  exercise  and  quiet  enjoyment  of  his  rights. 

"  If  General  Grant  is  set  aside,  who  is  offered  us  in  his  place  ? 
Horace  Greeley.  I  need  not  tell  you,  my  friends,  what  Horace 
Greeley  is  :  we  Abolitionists  knew  him  only  too  well  in  the 
weary  years  of  our  struggle.  He  had  enough  of  clear,  moral 
vision  to  see  the  justice  of  our  cause  ;  but  he  never  had  courage 
to  confess  his  faith.  If  events  had  ever  given  him  the  courage, 
he  never  would  have  had  principle  enough  to  risk  anything  for 
an  idea.  A  trimmer  by  nature  and  purpose,  he  has  abused 
even  an  American  politician's  privilege  of  trading  principles  for 
success.  As  for  his  honesty— for  twenty  years  it  has  been  a 
byword  with  us  that  it  would  be  safe  to  leave  your  open  purse 
in  the  same  room  with  him  ;  but,  as  for  any  other  honesty,  no 
one  was  ever  witless  enough  to  connect  the  idea  with  his  name. 

"  Gentlemen,  I  have  another  interest  in  Grant's  re-election. 


402  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  Anti-Slavery  cause  was  only  a  portion  of  the  great  struggle 
between  Capital  and  Labor.  Capital  undertook  to  own  the 
laborer.  We  have  broken  that  up.  If  Grant  is  elected,  that  dis 
pute,  and  all  questions  connected  with  it,  sink  out  of  sight.  All 
the  issues  of  the  war  are  put  beyond  debate,  and  a  clear  field  is 
left  for  the  discussion  of  the  Labor  movement.  I  do  not  count 
much  on  the  recognition  of  that  movement  by  the  Republican 
Convention,  though  I  gratefully  appreciate  it.  But  I  see  in  the 
bare  success  itself,  of  General  Grant,  the  retiring  of  old  issues, 
and  the  securing  of  a  place  for  new  ones. 

"  If  Greeley  is  elected,  we  shall  spend  the  next  four  years  in 
fighting  over  the  war-quarrels,  constitutional  amendments, 
negroes'  rights,  State  rights,  repudiation,  and  Southern  debts. 
And  we  shall  have  besides  a  contemptuous  ignoring  of  the  Labor 
question.  Its  friends  were  at  Cincinnati.  The  Convention 
scorned  their  appeals,  and  Mr.  Schurz  himself  affirmed  that 
Labor  was  '  not  a  live  issue.'  President  Grant  means  peace,  and 
opportunity  to  agitate  the  great  industrial  questions  of  the  day. 
President  Greeley  means  the  scandal  and  wrangle  of  Andy  John 
son's  years  over  again,  with  secession  encamped  in  Washington. 

"  We  have  forgiven.  But  duty  to  the  dead,  and  to  the  negro, 
forbids  us  to  trust  power  to  any  hands,  without  undoubted,  in 
dubitable  certainty  that  such  hands  are  trustworthy.  If  we  fail 
in  this  caution,  we  shall  only  have  decoyed  the  negro  into  dan 
ger,  and  left  him  doubly  defenceless.  I  wish  my  voice  could  be 
heard  by  every  colored  man  down  to  the  Gulf,— not  because  they 
need  my  advice.  No  :  they  understand  and  see  the  danger. 
But  I  should  like  to  rally  them  to  help  us,  a  second  time,  to  save 
the  nation.  I  should  say  to  them,  '  Vote,  every  one  of  you,  for 
Grant,  as  you  value  property,  life,  wife,  or  child.  If  Greeley  is 
elected,  arm,  concentrate,  conceal  your  property,  but  organize 
for  defence.  You  will  need  it  soon,  and  sadly.' 

"  Workingmen,  rally  now,  to  save  your  great  question  from 
being  crowded  out,  and  postponed  another  four  years. 

"  Soldiers,  at  the  roll-call  in  November,  let  no  loyal  man  fail 
to  answer  to  his  name."  l 

This  advice  was  heard  and  heeded.      Greelev  was 


Vide  Boston  Daily  Advertise)',  August  loth,  1872. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  403 

buried  under  an  adverse  vote,  and  Grant  remained 
for  a  second  term  in  the  White  House. 

From  the  commencement  of  his  public  career,  Mr. 
Phillips  had  been  in  profound  sympathy  with  Ireland 
in  her  sorrows  and  sufferings  under  English  misrule. 
He  had  visited  the  Emerald  Isle, — had  seen  the 
misery, — had  marked  the  prejudice, — had  imbibed 
the  spirit  of  Emmet,  of  Grattan,  of  Moore, — had 
been  intimate  with  O'Connell,  whose  eulogist  he 
made  himself.  Probably  no  other  American,  cer 
tainly  no  other  American  of  prominence,  was  so 
familiar  with  the  story  of  Ireland's  woes  as  he  was, 
both  from  personal  observation  and  from  study. 
For  thirty  years  he  never  omitted  an  opportunity  to 
plead  her  cause  before  the  grand  jury  of  the  Ameri 
can  people.  As  that  cause  came  up  more  and  more 
frequently  for  consideration  over  here,  he  corre 
spondingly  increased  the  number  and  pungency  of 
his  speeches  on  that  topic. 

In  1873  James  Anthony  Froude,  who  masqueraded 
as  an  historian,  and  who  was  a  brilliant  pamphleteer, 
landed  in  Boston  and  delivered  a  series  of  lectures 
on  England  and  Ireland  (which  he  subsequently  re 
peated  in  the  large  cities),— ingenious,  able,  and  mis 
leading.  The  one  man  fitted  by  genius,  knowledge 
of  the  subject,  and  the  possession  of  the  public  ear, 
to  challenge  his  statements,  explode  his  falsehoods, 
elevate  Ireland  in  American  esteem, — was  Wendell 
Phillips.  And  self-prompted,  he  assumed  the  con 
genial  task.  In  a  lecture  entitled  "  Inferences  from 
Froude,"  careful  in  statement,  judicious  and  judicial 
in  tone,  and  in  a  style  that  coruscated,  before  the 
culture  of  Boston,  amid  a  tumult  of  applause,  the 
deed  was  done.  Mr.  Phillips  traversed  the  entire 


404  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

field  of  controversy.     We  can  give  no  more  than  a 
specimen  page  or  two  : 

"  When  during  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  Bismarck  smote 
England  contemptuously  in  the  face,  in  the  presence  of  all 
Europe,  why  did  she  not  draw  the  sword  ?  She  never  had  been 
reluctant  to  draw  the  sword.  She  had  been  the  great  inter- 
meddler  for  the  last  three  centuries.  There  could  not  be  a  crisis 
in  the  remotest  corner  of  the  globe,  about  the  most  insignificant 
motive  in  the  world,  that  England  did  not  put  in  her  mailed 
hand.  Palmerston's  laurels  were  all  won  from  meddling  in 
other  people's  messes.  If  China  wished  to  give  up  opium,  Eng 
land  wished  it  to  be  there.  If  Portugal  and  Spain  differed,  Can 
ning  must  send  his  fleet  to  watch  over  the  safetv  of  Lisbon. 
She  never  knew  a  war  that  she  could  leave  alone.  Why  did  she 
break  the  great  historic  precedent  of  two  hundred  years  in  this 
single  instance  ? 

"  I  believe,  that  instead  of  England's  having  conquered  Ire 
land,  in  the  true,  essential  statement  of  the  case,  as  it  stands 
to-day,  Ireland  has  conquered  England  !  She  has  summoned 
her  before  the  bar  of  the  civilized  world,  to  answer  and  plead 
for  the  justice  of  her  legislation  ;  she  has  checkmated  her  as  a 
power  on  the  chess-board  of  Europe  ;  she  has  monopolized  the 
attention  of  her  statesmen  ;  she  has  made  her  own  island  the 
pivot  upon  which  the  destiny  of  England  turns  ;  and  her  last 
great  statesman,  Mr.  Gladstone,  owes  whatever  fame  he  has,  to 
the  supposition  that  at  last  he  has  devised  a  way  by  which  he 
can  conciliate  Ireland,  and  save  his  own  country. 

"  I  thank  Mr.  Froude  that  he  has  painted  the  Irishman  as  a 
chronic  rebel.  It  shows  that  at  least  the  race  knew  that  they 
were  oppressed,  and  gathered  together  all  the  strength  that  God 
had  given  them  to  resist.  They  never  rested  contented.  It  is 
by  no  means,  therefore,  a  surprise  that  a  patriotic  Englishman, 
looking  back  on  the  last  three  centuries,  should  long  to  justify 
his  nation  and  his  own  race,  after  having  conceived  that  it  has 
all  the  brains,  and  two  thirds  of  the  heart  of  the  world.  It  vol 
unteered  to  be  the  guardian  of  this  obstinate  Ireland.  It  volun 
teered  to  furnish  a  government  to  the  distracted,  ignorant,  pov 
erty-stricken,  demoralized  millions  of  Ireland.  It  has  been 
three  hundred  years  at  the  experiment  ;  and  Mr.  Froude  told  us 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  405 

the  other  evening,  that,  rather  than  let  Ireland  go, — weary  of 
their  long  failure, — rather  than  let  Ireland  go,  they  would  exter 
minate  the  Irish  race  !  What  a  confession  of  statesmanship  ! 
4  We  have  tried  for  three  hundred  years  to  manufacture  a  gov 
ernment,  and  at  the  end  of  it  our  alternative  is  extermination  !  ' 

"  Well,  you  see,  the  world  asks,  whence  comes  this  result  ? 
Was  the  English  race  incapable  ?  Did  it  lack  courage  ?  Did  it 
lack  brains  ?  Did  it  lack  care  ?  Did  it  lack  common  sense  ? 
Did  it  lack  that  discriminating  sagacity  which  knows  time  and 
place  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  failure  ?  And,  ol  course, 
the  only  answer  of  an  Englishman  who  is  unwilling  to  tear  down 
the  great  splendor  of  his  flag,  is,  to  find  the  cause  in  the  dogged 
incapacity  of  Ireland,  and  not  in  any  lack  of  his  own  country. 
Mr.  Froude  is  obliged  to  prove  that  the  Irish  were  left  by  God 
unfinished,  and  that  you  cannot,  by  any  wit  of  man,  manufac 
ture  a  citizen  out  of  an  Irishman.  He  is  shut  up  to  this  argu 
ment  :  for,  unless  he  proves  the  Irishman  a  knave,  he  is  obliged, 
from  the  facts  of  the  case,  to  confess  England  a  fool  ;  that  is  the 
grand  alternative. 

"  He  comes,  therefore,  to  us  with  that  purpose.  He  comes  to 
excuse  England  on  the  ground  of  Irish  incapacity.  Well,  it  was 
a  marvellously  bad  choice  of  a  jury  :  for  there  were  a  number 
of  logical,  middle-aged  gentlemen,  who  met  in  Philadelphia,  on 
the  fourth  day  of  July,  1776,  and  asserted  that  God  created  every 
man  fit  to  be  a  citizen  ;  that  he  did  not  leave  any  race  so  half 
made  up  and  half  finished,  that  they  were  to  travel  through  the 
cycle  of  three  hundred  years  under  the  guardianship  of  any 
power.  And,  on  that  fourth  day  of  July,  they  established  the 
corner-stone  of  American  political  faith,  that  all  men  are  capable 
of  self-government  ;  while  the  whole  substratum  of  this  course 
of  lectures,  by  this  eloquent  British  scholar,  was  the  claim  that 
God  left  Ireland  so  unfinished  that  a  merciful  despotism  was 
necessary."  ' 

The  fact  that  he  was  thus  confronted  on  the  thresh 
old  of  his  American  tour  by  the  most  formidable 
orator  in  the  world,  by  whom  his  facts  were  denied, 


1  Vide   the    pamphlet    containing    the    lecture    in    various    public 
libraries. 


406  WENDELL   PIIILLirS. 

his  theories  refuted,  his  object  disclosed, — naturally 
discouraged  Mr.  Froude,  and  he  soon  .retired  from 
the  unequal  contest  ;  while  Mr.  Phillips  received  the 
grateful  thanks  of  Erin. 

Mrs.  Phillips  had  taken  a  fancy  to  Swampscott, 
down  by  the  sea,  as  a  summer  residence.  Her  hus 
band,  always  desirous  of  carrying  out  her  wishes, 
had  secured  an  abode  there  ;  and  there  they  passed 
the  summer  of  1873,  as  they  had  that  of  1872.  He 
enjoyed  this  breathing  spell,  before  active  life  again 
caught  him  up  and  whirled  him  away. 

The  cold  weather  soon  did  this,  and  the  "  vaga 
bond  lecturer"  (as  he  nicknamed  himself)  set  out 
once  more  upon  his  travels.  In  December,  1873,  he 
looked  in  upon  a  fine  gathering  of  the  Woman  Suf 
fragists  at  Faneuil  Hall,  and  spoke  with  his  accus 
tomed  vim  and  finish,  with  the  Rev.  James  Freeman 
Clarke,  Mrs.  Mary  A.  Livermore,  Frederick  Doug 
lass,  Mrs.  Lucy  Stone,  and  Mr.  Garrison  as  fellow- 
orators.  Mr.  Phillips  regarded  the  restricted  sphere 
of  woman  as  due  to  her  own  indifference  and  to  mas 
culine  selfishness.  It  never  occurred  to  him  to  attrib 
ute  it,  as  Miss  Frances  E.  Willard  did,  not  long 
ago,  to  the  dress  of  the  gentler  sex  : 

"  Catch  Edison  and  constrict  him  inside  a  wasp 
waistcoat,  and  be  sure  you'll  get  no  more  inven 
tions  ;  bind  a  bustle  upon  Bismarck,  and  farewell  to 
German  unity  ;  coerce  Robert  Browning  into  cor 
sets,  and  you'll  have  no  more  epics  ;  put  Parnell 
into  petticoats,  and  Home  Rule  is  a  lost  cause." 

On  the  whole,  we  freely  admit  that  we  should  be 
sorry  to  see  these  gentlemen  in  any  such  rig. 


VI 

OLLA  PODRIDA. 

THE  year  1874  was  not  specially  notable  in  the  life 
of  Mr.  Phillips.  He  did  not  vegetate  by  any  means, 
but  occupied  the  hours  largely  with  routine  duties, 
— lecturing  in  the  winter  and  spring,  and  resuming 
the  platform  in  the  fall,  after  the  summer  interrup 
tion. 

In  July  he  received  some  pamphlets  from  the  Eng 
lish  reformer,  George  J.  Holyoake,  which  he  ac 
knowledged  in  a  letter  from  which  we  extract  a  few 
paragraphs  touching  upon  current  topics  : 

"  I  wish  I  could  have  an  hour's  talk  with  you  on  this  Labor 
and  Capital  question, — one,  perhaps,  to  have  as  angry  an  agita 
tion  as  slavery  caused.  Wealih,  with  you,  governs  ;  but  its 
power  is,  I  suppose,  somewhat  masked,  sometimes  countervailed 
or  checked  by  other  forces.  With  us  it  rules,  bare,  naked, 
shameless,  undisguised.  Our  incorporated  wo.z\\.\it  often  wielded 
by  a  single  hand,  is  fearful  with  direct,  and  still  more  with  in 
direct,  power.  We  have  single  men  who  wield  four  hundred 
million  dollars,  so  shaped  that  towns,  counties,  States,  are  its 
vassals.  Two  or  three  united  railways  (one  president)  will  sub 
ject  a  State  to  their  will.  Vanderbilt  is  reported  to  say,  "  It  is 
cheaper  and  surer  to  buy  legislatures  than  voters."  This  is 
the  peril  of  universal  suffrage.  Then,  rum  rules  our  great 
cities  whenever  it  chooses  to  exert  its  power.  The  sadness  of 
the  whole  thing  is,  one  hardly  sees  whence  the  cure  is  to  come. 
I  believe,  I  don't  see.  Truly  our  movements  demand  a  most 
patient  faith.  I  never  expected  to  see  any  success  of  our  Anti- 
Slavery  struggle.  Fortified  in  Church,  State,  and  capital,  the 


408  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

system  would  have  outlived  this  generation,  and  perhaps  the 
next,  with  ordinary  shrewdness  on  the  part  of  its  friends.  The 
gods  made  them  mad  on  their  way  to  destruction,  and  so  hast 
ened  it. 

"  Neither  shall  I  live  long  enough  to  see  any  marked  result  of 
our  Labor  movement  here,  though  it  is  true  that  our  masses 
ripen  marvellously  quick  ;  but,  as  you've  said,  the  cliques,  jeal 
ousies,  distrust,  and  ignorance  of  workingmen  are  our  chief 
obstacles.  Indeed,  we  sometimes  get  better  help  from  open- 
hearted  capitalists.  Your  ranks  are  infinitely  better  trained  than 
ours  to  stand  together  on  some  one  demand  just  long  enough  to 
be  counted,  and  so  insure  that  respect  which  numbers  always 
command  in  politics  where  universal  suffrage  obtains.  Then 
we'd  have  all  the  brains  of  the  land,  our  servants,  and  soon 
gain  that  attention  which  inhere  half  of  success.  But  I  suppose 
all  this  is  familiar  to  you,  as  well  as  the  strength  we  expect  from 
related  questions, — finances,  mode  of  taxation,  land  tenure,  etc. 
There'll  never  be,  I  believe  and  trust,  a  class-party  here,  Labor 
against  Capital,  the  lines  are  so  indefinite,  like  dove's-neck 
colors.  Three  fourths  of  our  population  are  to  some  extent 
capitalists  ;  and,  again,  all  see  that  there  is  really,  and  ought 
always  to  be,  alliance,  not  struggle,  between  them.  So  we  lean 
chiefly  on  related  questions  for  growth  :  limitation  of  hours  is 
almost  the  only  special  measure.  But  enough."  l 

At  this  time  a  sorry  state  of  things  prevailed  in 
the  South.  The  Secession  States  had  been  recon 
structed,  and  a  struggle  was  going  on  between  the 
loyal  and  the  disloyal  elements  down  there  for  the 
control.  Louisiana,  particularly,  heaved  with  insur 
rection.  She,  too,  had  resumed  her  Statehood  and 
used  it  to  oppress  the  negroes.  The  Governor  had 
been  placed  in  power  by  their  votes,  and  made  him 
self  their  champion.  The  Legislature  was  filled 
with  their  foes,  and  became  an  engine  of  oppression. 


1   Vide  Austin's   "  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell   Phillips,"  pp.  304, 
305. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  409 

With  the  Governor  on  one  side  and  the  Legislature 
on  the  other,  Louisiana  was  as  stormy  as  the  Bay  of 
Biscay.  Finally  the  Governor  appealed  to  the  Ad 
ministration  to  assist  him  in  maintaining  law  and 
order.  President  Grant  straightway  ordered  Gen 
eral  Sheridan,  who  was  in  command  of  the  Depart 
ment,  with  his  headquarters  at  New  Orleans,  to  sup 
port  the  State  executive.  Instantly  there  arose 
throughout  the  Union  a  clamor  against  Grant  and 
Sheridan  from  the  Democrats  and  the  Greeley  Re 
publicans.  The  National  Government  was  accused 
of  trampling  upon  State  rights— quite  the  old  rebel 
yell.  Public  meetings  were  held  to  denounce  the 
"  outrage  ;"  among  the  rest,  one  in  Boston,  on  Jan 
uary  I5th,  1875,  in  Faneuil  Hall.  The  call  for  this 
last  had  been  largely  signed  by  Greeley  Republi 
cans,  who,  however,  were  mostly  absent  when  the 
meeting  was  held,  the  old  hall  being  crowded  by 
Democrats,  with  a  contingent  of  regular  Republi 
cans  Avho  had  come  in  to  watch  the  proceedings. 
Mr.  Phillips,  greatly  interested  in  the  Louisiana 
plot,  sat  quietly  in  the  gallery.  Resolutions  were 
read  denouncing  Grant  and  Sheridan.  The  speakers 
one  after  another  had  their  say,  loud  cries  for  Phil 
lips  ringing  through  the  hall  as  each  concluded  and 
the  next  was  introduced.  Neither  the  chairman  nor 
the  orator  paid  any  attention  to  these  calls,  until  the 
programme  was  ended,  when  the  demand  was  so 
loud  and  persistent  that  it  could  not  be  ignored.  At 
last,  the  chairman  said  :  "  This  is  Faneuil  Hall — 
sacred  to  free  speech.  If  any  gentleman  desires  to 
speak,  he  shall  be  heard." 

Mr.  Phillips   rose  in  the  gallery,  but  was  called 
to  the  platform.     Amid  the  din   he  soon  made  him- 


410  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

self  heard  and  commanded  attention.  The  meeting- 
claimed  to  speak  for  Boston,  although  all  the  speakers 
were  outsiders.  The  orator  dwelt  on  this  fact  with 
great  effect  : 

"  Here  are  Adams,  from  Quincy,  Saltonstall,  from  New  York, 
and  this,  that,  and  the  other  gentleman,  from  Salem,  Cctm- 
bridge,  Worcester — everywhere  but  Boston.  In  the  absence  of 
Dana.  Bigelow,  Bartlett,  the  bar  is  not  here.  In  the  absence  of 
the  merchants  of  the  city,  commerce  is  not  here.  This  meeting 
represents  individuals— nothing  else.  Boston  is  not  here." 

He  then  proceeded  to  make  a  lucid  constitutional 
argument  in  the  vindication  of  Grant  and  Sheridan, 
and  ended  thus  : 

"  I  wanted  to  record  my  protest  against  these  resolutions  con 
demning  President  Grant  and  General  Sheridan  for  doing  their 
duty.  Other  men  have  done  this  by  their  absence.  I  choose  to 
doit  by  my  presence, — in  this  very  hall,  and  under  this  loof, 
where  1  have  so  often  labored  for  the  liberty  which  Louisiana 
now  threatens." 

The  speech  was  boisterously  applauded,  and  hissed, 
too — an  old-time  scene.  But  the  presence  and 
speech  of  Mr.  Phillips  killed  the  purpose  for  which 
the  meeting  had  been  called.  An  amendment  to  the 
resolutions  was  offered,  praising  Grant  and  Sheiidan, 
and  carried,  though  the  chairman  declared  it  lost. 
And  so  the  denunciation  exploded  in  a  laugh  at,  the 
denouncers.  Boston  had  spoken — but  not  in  the 
expected  way.1 

A  question  of  wider  interest  than  the  Louisiana 
muddle,  related  in  these  days  to  the  currency. 

Worcester  defines  currency  to  be  "  that  which 
passes  for  money  in  a  country  ;  the  aggregate  of 

1  Vide  Boston  dailies  of  January  i6th,  1875,  and  New  York  Tribune, 
January  i6th,  1875. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  41  I 

coin,  bills,  notes,  etc.,  in  circulation."  Of  course, 
the  first  care  of  a  country  is  to  establish  a  currency 
— has  been  since  the  dawn  of  history.  When  the 
precious  metals  were  scarce,  other  standards  of 
value  were  used.  Iron  was  the  coin  of  the  Spartans, 
copper  that  of  the  Romans.  Next  silver  came  in. 
Finally,  St.  Louis  adopted  a  gold  currency  for 
France.  Since  then  gold  and  silver  have  formed  the 
double  standard,  until  recently,  when  England  sub 
stituted  gold  alone.  But  as  there  is  neither  gold  nor 
silver  enough  in  existence  to  carry  on  the  business 
of  these  modern  commercial  times,  each  country  has 
supplemented  the  metals  by  a  bank-note  currency, 
convertible  into  gold  or  silver  on  demand. 

When  the  Rebellion  broke  out,  the  Government, 
in  order  to  conduct  its  stupendous  operations,  issued 
bonds  to  raise  money,  and  notes,  called  greenbacks 
from  their  color,  as  a  circulating  medium.  The 
situation  was  desperate.  Money-lenders  would  not 
buy  the  bonds  save  at  a  heavy  discount  ;  and  though 
the  greenbacks  were  a  legal  tender,  it  took  two  or 
three  dollars  in  currency  to  make  a  gold  dollar. 
With  the  success  of  the  Union,  the  greenbacks  appre 
ciated,  but  gold  continued  to  command  a  fluctuating 
premium.  The  constant  endeavor  of  the  Govern 
ment  from  1865  onward  to  1878,  when  it  succeeded, 
was  to  resume  specie  payments — that  is,  to  make  the 
greenbacks  worth  their  face  value.  Meanwhile, 
through  these  years  trade  was  disturbed,  financial 
panics  were  frequent  and  gold  remained  in  Europe. 

The  plans  for  remedying  these  evils  were  as 
numerous  as  the  individuals  who  proposed  them. 
Mr.  Phillips  had  his  plan.  He  first  stated  it  in  pub 
lic  at  a  meeting  of  the  American  Social  Science  Asso- 


412  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

elation,  in  Boston,  on  March  3d,  1875.      Briefly,  his 
points  were  these  : 

1.  Take  away   from  the  banks  the  right  to  issue 
bills,  and  call  in  those  now  in  circulation. 

2.  Let  the  Government  supply  a  national  currency 
ample  to  meet  the  demands  of   business — its  issue 
being  secured  by  the  wealth  of  the  country. 

3.  Reduce  the  heavy  rates  of  interest  by  calling  in 
outstanding  interest-bearing  bonds. 

The  results  of  such  a  policy,  he  contended,  would 
be  fourfold,  viz.,  to  redeem  and  destroy  the  present 
greenbacks,  and  thus  silence  the  complaint  that 
Government  had  not  kept  faith  in  their  redemption  ; 
to  put  the  currency  on  a  basis  as  stable  as  the  na 
tional  resources,  and  thus  avoid  the  danger  of  inter 
ference  by  the  gold  rings  here  and  abroad  ;  to  make 
the  bonds  a  good  permanent  investment  for  capital 
ists  ;  and  to  develop  the  country  by  making  it  possi 
ble  for  individual  borrowers  to  get  money  at  a  low 
rate  from  the  Government  by  placing  collateral  in 
its  hands. 

This  would  make  the  new  greenbacks  as  good  as 
gold.  It  would  bring  about  practical  resumption  of 
specie  payments.  Before  long  the  Government 
bonds  would  command  a  premium.1 

"Three  times  within  a  dozen  years,"  said  he  "capitalists 
with  their  knives  on  the  throat  of  the  Government,  have  com 
pelled  it  to  cheat  its  largest  creditor,  the  people  ;  whose  claim, 
Burke  said,  was  the  most  sacred.  First,  the  pledge  that  green 
backs  should  he  exchangeable  with  bonds  was  broken.  Sec 
ondly,  debts  originally  payable  in  paper,  as  Sherman  confessed 
in  the  Senate,  were  made  payable  in  gold.  Thirdly,  silver  was 


Vide  New  York   Tribune,  March  4:b,  1875. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  413 

demonetized,  and  gold  made  the  only  tender.  A  thousand  mill 
ions  were  thus  stolen  from  the  people."  1 

These  views  Mr.  Phillips  embodied  in  a  lecture  on 
"  Finance,"  which  he  delivered  widely  for  several 
years.  In  the  fall  of  1875  he  exchanged  shots  with 
Carl  Schurz  on  this  question,  his  pistol  being  the 
New  York  Herald?  while  Schurz's  revolver  was  the 
New  York  Tribune.  It  was  like  a  French  duel- 
neither  was  hurt.  The  Agitator  never  claimed  orig 
inality  for  his  financial  theories.  He  held  them  in 
common  with  a  host  of  others,  many  of  whom  were 
among  the  shrewdest  and  most  successful  of  Ameri 
can  financiers.  But  his  way  of  stating  and  defending 
them  was  all  his  own,  and  was  characterized  by  his 
usual  ingenuity  and  brilliancy  of  style. 

While  a  heretic  in  finance,  Phillips  was  orthodox 
in  another  branch  of  political  economy — he  was  a 
Protectionist.  On  a  certain  occasion  the  Hon. 
David  A.  Wells,  the  eminent  free-trader,  read  a 
paper  in  a  circle  of  savants,  enforcing  his  views. 
Mr.  Phillips,  who  was  among  the  listeners,  expressed 
his  dissent,  when  the  essayist  was  through  : 

"  Fifteen  years  ago  I  advocated  free  trade.     I  was  mislecHyu  £/t/l"' 
theoretical  arguments,  but  was  set  right  by  Mr.  Henry  Car^the  Q 

patriarch  of  political  economy.  1  heard  Gary  say  :  '  I  had  just 
finished  a  crushing  reply  to  the  New  England  tariff  men, — one 
that  I  thought  demolished  their  whole  structure  of  argument. 
I  went  to  bed  delighted  with  my  success  in  stating  my  case. 
Somehow  I  could  not  help  seeing  that,  though  the  logic  seemed 
perfect,  it  did  not  cover  the  facts.  On  paper  it  was  all  right  ; 
out  in  the  world  the  facts  were  the  other  way.  I  lay  awake  all 
night,  chewing  on  the  contradiction,  and  arose  the  next  morn 
ing  a  tariff  man.'  Any  one  who  listened  from  Gary's  lips  to  the 


1  "  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  p.  165. 

>J  New  York  Herald,  October  6ih,  1875,  and  Tribune,  October  gth. 


4H  \VENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

stern  facts  which  converted  him  in  that  night  of  anxious,  honest 
thought  would  never  again  be  duped  by  free  trade. 

"  Nations  are  large  enough  to  be  considered  separately  from 
each  other.  internal  industry  should  be  diversified.  Under 
free-trade  rule  our  country  would  be  wholly  agricultural.  Other 
elements  must  be  considered  besides  the  mere  question  of 
wealth.  Should  we  lose  our  diversified  occupations,  we  would 
suffer  a  great  loss,  though  there  might  be  a  pecuniary  gam. 
Nations  might  gain  the  whole  world — that  is,  half  the  material 
wealth  of  the  world— and  yet  lose  their  own  souls  and  most  of 
their  bodies,  too.  Theories  are  pleasing  things,  and  seem  to 
get  rid  of  all  difficulties  so  very  easily.  One  must  begin  to  ab 
stract  principles  and  study  them.  But  wisdom  consists  in  per 
ceiving  when  human  nature  and  this  perveise  world  necessitate 
making  exceptions  to  abstract  truths.  Any  boy  can  see  an  ab 
stract  principle.  Only  threescore  years  and  ten  can  discern 
precisely  when  and  where  it  is  well,  necessary,  and  right  to 
make  an  exception  to  it.  That  faculty  is  wisdom,  all  the  rest  is 
playing  with  counters.  And  this  explains  how  the  influx  into 
politics  of  a  shoal  of  college-boys,  slenderly  furnished  with 
Greek  and  Latin,  but  steeped  in  marvellous  and  delightful  igno 
rance  of  life  and  public  affairs,  is  filling  the  country  with  Iree- 
trade  dm. 

"  National  lines — artificial  lines— trip  up  fine  theories  sadly. 
If  all  the  world  were  under  one  law,  and  every  man  raised  to 
the  level  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  free  trade  would  be  so 
easy  and  so  charming  !  But  while  nations  study  only  how  to 
cripple  their  enemies, — that  is,  their  neighbors, — and  while  each 
trader  strives  to  cheat  his  customer  and  strangle  the  firm  on  the 
other  side  of  the  street,  we  must  not  expect  the  millennium."  J 

The  centennial  of  the  birth  of  Daniel  O'Connell 
occurred  on  August  6th,  1875.  The  Irish  race  cele 
brated  it  around  the  globe.  In  Boston,  the  observ 
ance  was  most  remarkable.  Wendell  Phillips  was 
the  orator  of  the  occasion,  the  vast  Music  Hall  the 
place,  and  applauding  thousands  the  participators. 

1  "  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  pp.  162,  163. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  415 

The  oration  was  a  masterpiece — the  apotheosis  of 
one  agitator  by  another.  It  ranks  among  the  half 
dozen  supreme  efforts  of  the  kind  in  the  English  lan 
guage,  and  displays  the  marvellous  powers  of  Mr. 
Phillips  at  their  best.1 

Later  in  the  year  he  threw  into  a  single  presenta 
tion  the  three  questions  nearest  his  heart,  and  under 
the  caption  of  "  Temperance,  Labor,  and  Woman"  ~ 
pleaded  these  causes  simultaneously.  This,  too,  was 
a  remarkable  achievement  ;  not  on  account  of  any 
novelty  of  views,  for  these  were  more  or  less  familiar 
to  his  audiences,  but  because  of  the  felicitous  manner 
in  which  he  fitted  such  seemingly  diverse  themes 
together,  and  made  them  seem  related  parts  of  one 
great  wfrole. 

For  years  the  Indians  had  been  numbered  among 
Mr.  Phillips's  principal  clients.  In  1875  he  prepared 
a  lecture  on  this  subject,  and  gave  it  frequently. 
His  solution  of  the  Indian  problem  was  like  his  solu 
tion  of  all  such  questions — love  and  justice.  He 
thought  the  redman  had  been  shamefully  abused, — 
held  on  the  frontier, — surrounded  by  soldiers,  not 
laws,  — robbed  of  his  lands  as  often  as  white  greed 
coveted  them, — sent  for  redress  to  a  colonel,  not  to 
a  court, — and  dealt  with  under  a  policy  of  extermi 
nation  rather  than  civilization,  our  weapons  a  musket 
and  a  whiskey-bottle.  This  he-  contrasted  with  the 
English  method  in  Canada,  where  a  white  man  could 
vault  into  the  saddle  and  ride  from  Montreal  to  the 
Pacific  without  a  pistol, — where  civilization  had 
adopted  the  Indians  as  fast  as  they  were  reached, — 

1  Vide  Appendix  for  the  oration  in  full. 

2  This  lecture  was  widely  reported  at  the  time,  but  no  complete  re 
port  is  now  at  hand. 


4*6  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

and  where  the  Crown  had  spent  nothing  for  a  hun 
dred  years  for  blood  and  spoliation  ;  while  the 
United  States  had  lavished  hundreds  of  millions  only 
to  place  our  Government  on  a  level  with  the  barbar 
ism  it  condemned.  He  hailed  the  Indian  policy  of 
General  Grant  as  the  first  suggestion,  since  William 
Penn,  of  a  Christian  heart  and  a  sane  mind  touching 
the  aborigines  on  the  part  of  the  Republic.1 

Chronic  outbreaks  on  the  frontier,  such  as  the 
Modoc  war  and  the  episode  of  Sitting  Bull  and  Gen 
eral  Custer,  gave  timeliness  and  point  to  these  utter 
ances.  Indeed,  Mr.  Phillips  seldom  wasted  his  ammu 
nition  on  dead  issues  ;  his  aim  being,  like  Pope's,  to 

"  Shoot  folly  as  it  flies." 

On  his  birthday,  this  year,  he  received  a  lovely 
basket  of  flowers  from  some  thoughtful  friends, 

which  he  thus  noticed  : 

14  November  29,  1875. 

"  DEAR  FRIENDS  :  It  is  pleasant  to  have  some  one  remember 
our  birthdays.  It  carries  us  back  to  times  of  childhood, — 
mother,  brothers,  and  sisters.  How  laughingly  and  joyously 
we  counted  them  up  then,  as  they  came  only  too  slowly  along, 
keeping  back  the  presents  we  longed  for.  Now  they  hurry- 
scurry  on,  coming  round  so  quickly. 

"  Well,  we  all  walk  along  together.      We  shall    l:eep  abreast. 

"  Ann  will  cosset  and  enjoy  your  beautiful  basket  for  many  a 
week,  and  I  shall  enjoy  her  joy  in  it. 

"  Yours  faithfully, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sargent. 


1  The  lecture  on  the  Indians  was  never  fully  reported — only  out 
lined.  But  in  1866  and  the  succeeding  years  Mr.  Phillips  frequently 
dealt  with  the  question  in  the  columns  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Standard, 
to  which  those  interested  are  referred. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  417 

At  another  time,  in  this  same  year,  he  wrote  in  a 
different  vein,  to  Mrs.  John  T.  Sargent  : 

"  DEAR  MADAM  :  You  know  my  benevolence.  Well,  it  is 
therefore  that  I  hasten  to  inform  you  of  your  good  fortune. 

"  Most  people  leave  legacies  when  they  die. 

"  But  you  know  Tom  Appletonsays  that*  when  good  Yankees 
die  they  go  to  Paris.'  Well,  one  of  your  friends,  starting  for 
Paris,  seems  to  have  imagined  that  she  was  dying.  At  any  rate, 
she  acted  as  if  dying  and  left  you  a  legacy.  This  is  it  :  '  When 
you  come  to  Boston  go  down  with  a  strong  porter  to  the  Com 
monwealth  rooms  and  you'll  find  there  the  bust  of  Colonel 
Shaw.' 

"  Edmonia  Lewes,  starting  for  Europe,  said  to  me  :  '  That 
dear,  good  woman,  I  do  love  her.  I  want  her  to  have  it.  Give 
it  to  her  as  my  legacy.' 

"There,  be  happy  and  proud.  And  if  you  can't  go  on  a 
bust,  go  after  one."  ! 


1  Letter  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  J.  T.  Sargent  (MS.). 


VII. 

USEFULNESS. 

THE  philanthropy  of  Wendell  Phillips  was  local  as 
well  as  cosmopolitan.  That  he  pleaded  for  the  negro 
in  the  South  and  the  Indian  in  the  West,  for  the 
Irishmen  under  the  tyranny  of  England  and  the 
Cretan  beneath  the  Sultan's  cimeter,  is  known.  He 
also  saw,  felt  for,  and  relieved  the  want  that  sobbed, 
and  sometimes  stole  and  stabbed,  just  'round  the 
corner.  For  years,  he  spent  a  large  part  of  each 
morning  in  court,  at  the  jail,  or  in  some  wretched 
home,  looking  up  needy  cases,  helping  indigent 
women  to  honest  work,  or  defending  some  poor 
fellow  who  was  hurt  or  hunted. 

One  night,  in  crossing  Boston  Common,  on  his  re 
turn  from  a  late  meeting,  he  was  accosted  by  a  street 
walker.  She  looked  into  his  face,  instinctively  felt  her 
mistake,  and  said  :  "  You  are  not  one  of  my  sort,  but, 
for  the  love  of  God,  give  me  money  !"  He  glanced 
kindly  in  her  face,  saw  there  the  wreck  of  comeliness, 
took  her  arm,  and  pacing  back  and  forth,  drew  out 
her  story.  It  was  the  old  one, — misplaced  affection, 
—betrayal, — desertion, — a  child  left  on  her  hands,— 
no  means  of  virtuous  livelihood, — the  street.  Now 
she  wanted  money  for  the  child.  He  investigated, 
found  she  had  not  lied,  and  helped  her  to  a  new  life.1 


1  The  writer  had  this  story  from  several  friends  of  Mr.  Phillips  who 
were  acquainted  with  the  facts. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  419 

Mr.  Phillips  haunted  the  streets  of  Boston.  '  They 
are  a  good  place  for  the  study  of  human  nature," 
said  he  ;  "  better  than  the  theatre,  for  here  both 
tragedy  and  comedy  are  real — and  so  are  the  actors. " 
His  friend,  William  I.  Bowditch,  discovered  him 
one  morning,  when  the  pavement  was  thronged  with 
business  men,  leaning  against  the  granite  wall  of  a 
bank  on  State  Street,  like  a  mendicant.  '  Wendell," 
said  he,  "  if  you  want  these  people  to  give  you 
money  you  must  take  off  your  hat  and  hold  it  in  your 
hand."1 

All  Bostonians  have  a  local  pride  ;  Phillips  loved 
the  very  stones  of  his  native  city.  "  No  one  who 
heard  it,"  remarks  Mr.  Higginson,  "can  ever  for 
get  the  thrilling  modulation  of  his  voice  when  he 
said  at  some  special  crisis  of  the  Anti-Slavery  agita 
tion  :  '  I  love  inexpressibly  these  streets  of  Boston, 
over  whose  pavements  my  mother  held  up  tenderly 
my  bab}7  feet  ;  and  if  God  grants  me  time  enough, 
I  will  make  them  too  pure  to  bear  the  footsteps  of  a 
slave.'  "  2  The  historic  landmarks  of  the  city  were 
his  delight.  He  regarded  them  as  the  noblest  instruc 
tors.  Therefore,  when  the  "Old  South"  Church 
was  threatened  with  destruction,  he  exerted  himself 
for  salvation.  This  was  peculiarly  dear  to  him  as 
the  oldest  of  Boston's  public  edifices,  older  than  the 
Old  State  House,  older  than  Faneuil  Hall,  dating 
from  1729.  The  religious  society  which  owned  it 
had  sold  the  building,  and  business  was  about  to  raze 
it  and  occupy  the  site.  To  save  it  $400,000  were 
required.  The  people  of  the  Commonwealth  shared 


1  Mr.  Bowditch  is  authority  for  this  story. 
'2  Higginson's  "  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  14. 


420  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

in  the  orator's  feeling,  and  $200,000  were  obtained 
by  popular  subscription. 

On  June  i4th,  1876,  Mr.  Phillips  spoke  in  the 
"  Old  South"  Church  in  the  interest  of  this  move 
ment. 

"  Except  the  Holy  City,"  he  asked,  "  is  there  any  more  mem 
orable  place  on  the  face  of  the  earth  than  this  ?  Athens  has 
her  Acropolis,  but  the  Greek  can  point  to  no  such  immediate  re 
sults.  Her  influence  passes  into  the  web  and  woof  of  history, 
mixed  with  a  score  of  other  elements  ;  and  it  needs  a  keen  eye 
to  follow  it.  London  has  her  Palace  and  Tower,  and  her  St. 
Stephen's  Chapel  ;  but  ths  human  race  owes  her  no  such  mem 
ories.  France  has  spots  marked  by  the  sublimest  devotions  ; 
but  the  pilgrimage  and  the  Mecca  of  the  man  who  believes  in 
and  hopes  for  the  human  race  is  not  to  Paris.  It  is  to  the  sea 
board  cities  of  the  great  republic.  And  when  the  flag  was  as 
sailed,  when  the  merchant  waked  up  from  his  gain,  the  scholar 
from  his  studies,  and  the  regiments  marched  one  by  one  through 
the  streets,  which  were  the  pavements  that  thrilled  under  their 
footsteps  ?  What  walls  did  they  salute  as  the  regimental  flags 
floated  by  to  Gettysburg  and  Antietam  ?  These  !  Our  boys 
carried  down  to  the  battle-fields  the  memory  of  State  Street,  and 
Faneuil  Hall,  and  the  '  Old  South'  Church.  .  .  . 

"  Go  ask  the  Londoner,  crowded  into  small  space,  what  num 
ber  of  pounds  laid  down  on  a  square  foot,  what  necessities  of 
business,  would  induce  him  to  pull  down  the  Tower,  and  build 
a  counting-house  on  its  site  !  Go  ask  Paris  what  they  will  take 
from  some  business  corporation  for  the  spot  where  Mirabeau 
and  Danton,  or,  later  down,  Lamartine  saved  the  great  flag  of 
the  tri-color  from  being  drenched  in  the  blood  of  their  fellow- 
citizens  !  What  makes  Boston  a  history  ?  Not  so  many  men, 
not  so  much  commerce.  It  is  ideas.  You  might  as  well  plough 
it  with  salt,  and  remove  bodily  into  the  more  healthy  elevation 
of  Brookline  or  Dorchester,  but  for  State  Street,  Faneuil  Hall, 
and  the  '  Old  South'  Church  ! 

"  What  does  Boston  mean  ?  Since  1630,  the  living  fibre, 
running  through  history,  which  owns  that  name,  means  jealousy 
of  power,  unfettered  speech,  keen  sense  of  justice,  readiness  to 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  42 r 

champion  any  good  cause.  That  is  the  Boston  Laud  suspected, 
North  hated,  and  the  negro  loved.  If  you  destroy  the  scenes 
which  perpetuate  that  Boston,  then  rebaptize  her  Cottonville  or 
Shoetown."  * 

An  interesting  incident  in  connection  with  this 
oration  was  the  presence  of  Dom  Pedro,  the  Bra 
zilian  Emperor,  in  the  audience.  Mr.  Phillips  had 
met  him  in  the  afternoon  at  a  delightful  s6ance  in 
the  Chestnut  Street  parlors  of  his  friends,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Sargent, — arranged  specially  to  enable  Dom 
Pedro  to  meet  Whittier,  with  whom  he  had  corre 
sponded  many  years  concerning  poetry  and  slavery. 
Phillips  found  the  Emperor  to  be  a  thorough  Aboli 
tionist  ;  and  not  long  afterward  he  abolished  slavery 
in  Brazil  ;  Whittier  being,  as  he  affirmed,  his  en- 
lightener,  and  therefore  the  Brazilian  liberator. 

When  the  venerable  poet  entered  and  interrupted 
the  conversation  with  Mr.  Phillips,  Dom  Pedro  rose, 
caught  him  in  his  arms  and  kissed  him,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  Latin  race.  The  blushing  Friend, 
diffident  as  a  girl,  was  quite  abashed,  but  with  a 
cordial  grasp  of  the  hand  drew  his  royal  admirer  to 
a  sofa,  where  they  sat  and  chatted  for  half  an  hour. 
Then  the  conversation  became  general.  The  Em 
peror,  who  spoke  English  perfectly,  told  of  his  driv 
ing  over  to  see  Bunker  Hill  Monument  at  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  He  found  the  keeper  abed.  When 
he  was  at  last  aroused,  his  Majesty,  having  forgotten 
his  purse,  was  obliged  to  borrow  half  a  dollar  of  his 
hackman  to  pay  the  entrance  fee.  There  was  a 
laugh  at  this,  and  Mr.  Phillips  told  him  the  rest  of 
the  story  ;  how,  two  hours  later,  a  well-known  leader 


1  This  oration,   revised  by  Mr.    Phillips,   is  on  sale  at   the  "Old 
South"  Church,  in  Boston. 


422  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

of  the  Boston  ton  came  in,  looked  over  the  book, 
saw  and  recognized  Dom  Pedro's  signature,  and 
asked  how  the  Emperor  looked.  Putting  on  his 
glasses  to  examine  the  handwriting,  the  fretful 
guardian  muttered  :  "  Emperor  !  that's  a  dodge  ; 
that  fellow  was  only  a  scapegrace  without  a  cent  in 
his  pocket." 

Mr.  Phillips  was  pleased  with  Dom  Pedro.  He 
found  him  intelligent,  keenly  interested  in  scientific, 
educational,  and  reformatory  matters,  and  altogether 
the  most  remarkable  specimen  of  democratic  royalty 
imaginable.  With  the  blood  of  the  Bourbons,  the 
Hapsburgs,  and  the  Braganzas  in  his  veins— the 
haughtiest  and  most  despotic  of  houses— he  was  the 
unpretentious  crony  of  radicals.  He  made  himself 
a  father  to  his  people,  and  assured  Phillips  and 
Whittier  that  his  ultimate  purpose  was  to  educate 
Brazil  into  republicanism.1 

It  was  for  its  educational  influence  that  the  orator 
valued  the  "  Old  South"  Church.  Indeed,  in  one 
phase  or  another,  he  regarded  education  as  the  most 
essential  interest  of  the  State.  Yet  it  is  significant 
of  the  practical  cast  of  his  mind,  that  at  the  very  time 

1  "  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  pp.  301,  302.  The  recent 
revolution  in  that  country  we  may  be  sure  cost  Dom  Pedro  no  pangs. 
He  only  thought  Brazil  not  yet  ripe  for  self-government.  He  had 
held  it  a  lifetime  without  disturbance,  promoted  peace  and  progress, 
and  aggrandized  the  Empire.  He  dreaded  to  see  Brazil  imitate  the 
other  republics  of  South  America,  which,  because  unready  for  repub 
licanism,  are  always  disturbed,  and  change  governments  so  fast  that 
no  president  sits  long  enough  to  get  a  photograph.  But  what  has 
occurred  there  he  had  prepared  the  way  for.  He  was  a  crowned 
emancipationist  and  republican.  The  manner  in  which  the  revolu 
tionists  treated  him  is  significant  of  their  respect  for  his  character  and 
purposes.  Dom  Pedro  is  the  only  dethroned  Emperor  in  history  who 
was  dismissed  with  regret,  with  presents,  and  with  a  pension. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  423 

when  he  was  pleading  for  a  sentiment  as  embodied 
in  the  "  Old  South,"  he  should  make  in  another 
place  and  relation  a  criticism  upon  the  training  of 
the  young  in  the  public  and  private  schools  as  lack 
ing  in  practical  purpose. 

"Our  schools,"  he  remarked,  "ignore  the  fact  that  seven 
tenths  of  their  scholars  must  earn  their  daily  bread.  They  teach 
without  reference  to  that.  And  the  boys  and  girls  after  gradu 
ating  have  to  unlearn  what  they  have  learned,  and  begin  again  in 
order  to  get  a  livelihood.  They  should  be  trained  with  constant 
reference  to  affairs — toward  and  not  away  from  the  farm,  the 
shop,  the  counting-room.  The  instruction  ought  to  be  technical.' '  * 

The  committee  having  in  charge  the  preservation  of 
the  "Old  South"  Church  had  organized  a  lecture 
course  in  aid  of  their  fund,  and,  remembering  the 
oration  in  1876,  honored  the  orator  by  securing  his 
services  to  open  the  series.  The  result  was  the  pro 
duction  and  delivery  by  him  on  May  i/th,  1877,  of  a 
new  biographical  lecture  on  "  Sir  Harry  Vane." 
From  the  "  Old  South"  he  carried  it  out  to  the  Ly 
ceum  audiences  of  the  country,  and  its  success  was 
instantaneous.  Unfortunately,  there  is  no  phono 
graphic  report  in  existence,  so  that  it  cannot  survive. 
But  Sir  Harry  Vane  was  one  of  the  heroes  of  Wen 
dell  Phillips.  He  placed  the  young  English  repub 
lican,  who  had  been  Governor  of  Massachusetts  at 
the  age  of  twenty-four,  in  advance  of  Winthrop, 
Adams,  and  Franklin  ;  declared  that  he  projected 
his  ideas  far  into  the  future  ;  and  when  a  boy  boldly 
announced  the  faith  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth.3 


1  Vide  New  York  Tribune,  December  7th,  1876. 
*  The  daily  press  of  Boston  briefly  reported  the  lecture  on  May 
i8th,  1877. 


424  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Mr.  Phillips  knew  how  to  wait.  But  he  had  a 
retentive  memory.  We  have  mentioned  the  keen 
ness  with  which  he  felt  the  injustice  of  the  adminis 
tration  in  recalling  Motley  from  London  in  1870,  and 
in  dropping  Sumner  from  the  Committee  of  Foreign 
Relations  in  1871.  The  great  senator  died  in  1874.' 
And  now  Motley,  in  1877,"  followed  him  to  the 
grave.  Prompted  by  the  double  bereavement,  their 
survivor  prepared  and  began  to  deliver,  in  Novem 
ber,  1877,  a  eulogy  on  "  Charles  Sumner,"  in  which 
he  vindicated  these  old  friends.  After  a  brief  but 
affectionate  portrayal  of  Sumner's  career,  he  passed 
to  the  consideration  of  the  historic  difficulty  between 
Grant  and  Secretary  Fish  on  one  side,  and  the  sen 
ator  and  Motley  on  the  other  : 

"  General  Grant  has  thrown  the  weight  of  his  name  against 
Mr.  Sumner.  I  have  a  great  respect  for  General  Grant.  1  have 
been  a  Grant  man  when  Faneuil  Hall  hissed  me  for  it.  I  ac 
knowledge  his  merits.  I  have  no  doubt  of  his  sincere  patriotism. 
But  General  Grant  must  remember  that,  when  he  impeaches 
history  and  the  loftiest  patriotism,  there  are  blows  to  take  as 
well  as  to  give,  and  it  is  himself  that  provoked  the  quarrel.  I 
have  always  known  Mr.  Sumner  as  the  most  methodical,  labori 
ous,  painstaking,  and  business-like  member  of  the  Senate.  The 
only  members  of  Congress,  in  my  day,  who  have  had  a  regular 
ledger,  or  docket,  of  public  employment  and  engagements,  were 
General  B.  F.  Butler  and  Mr.  Charles  Sumner.  They  were  the 
only  two  members  of  Congress  that  I  ever  knew  to  do  business 
on  business  principles,  and  I  felt  great  surprise  and  indignation 
when  the  charge  of  negligence  of  public  business  was  made  by 
General  Grant  against  Mr.  Sumner.  It  was  only  outdone  by 
the  intimation  that  Charles  Sumner  had  told  a  falsehood.  As 
Schurz  says  in  his  eulogy,  he  was  so  direct,  he  could  not  carry 
anything  by  a  flank  movement.  His  nature  was  incapable  of 
concealment.  He  had  none  of  the  usual  tact  of  men  who  push 

1  On  March  nth.  2  On  May  3Oth. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  425 

their  plans  in  the  world.  He  made  up  for  it  by  superhuman 
energy,  with  which  he  bore  down  all  opposition. 

'*  The  case  to  which  General  Grant  refers  is  the  removal  of 
Mr.  Sumner  from  the  chairmanship  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations,  which  he  says  was  proper  and  justifiable,  because 
Mr.  Sumner  was  negligent  of  public  duty,  and  the  confirmation 
of  the  act  is  found  in  the  charge  that  Mr.  Sumner  had  been  de 
tected  in  a  falsehood.  You  remember  Mr.  Sumner's  singular 
fitness  for  that  chairmanship.  Carl  Schurz  says  no  chairman 
ever  came  to  the  office  so  eminently  fitted  for  it.  This  is  the 
man  removed  for  negligence,  for  leaving  his  pigeon-holes  full  of 
treaties.  You  remember  the  position  of  Mr.  Fish  when  Sumner 
was  deposed.  You  remember  that  the  whole  North  surged  with 
hot  indignation.  When  did  General  Grant  first  find  this  out 
against  Sumner  ?  Why  did  they  not  think  of  this  before  ?  Why 
never  utter  it  till  now  ?  If  the  opposition  papers  had  known  that 
Mr.  Sumner  was  negligent,  would  they  not  have  told  of  it  ?  No  ; 
this  charge  is  an  after-thought.  If  it  had  been  true,  we  should 
have  heard  of  it  from  every  chamber  of  types  in  the  country. 
Go  to  the  Republican  papers  and  the  anti-Grant  papers  ;  they 
never  heard  of  these  charges. 

"  But  General  Grant  says  that  Mr.  Sumner  lied.  I  remember 
the  occasion.  Pardoa  me  if  I  recite  it.  Mr.  Sumner  received 
from  the  hands  of  General  Grant  the  treaty  of  San  Domingo, — 
from  General  Grant,  who  drove  up  to  his  door  while  he  was 
sitting  with  some  friends  at  dinner-table.  He  said  to  the  Presi 
dent,  '  I  will  look  at  the  bill.  I  trust  I  shall  have  the  pleasure 
of  supporting  the  administration.'  They  were  words  of  polite 
ness,  of  courtesy  merely,  without  having  examined  the  instru 
ment.  When  he  went  home,  and  examined  it,  he  found  the  dark 
treachery  to  the  black  race.  The  next  day  he  found  General 
Grant,  and  took  back  even  the  courteous  words.  He  pointed 
out  the  objections  to  the  treaty,  laid  before  him  the  impossibility 
of  his  supporting  it,  and  urged  a  reconsideration  of  the  action 
of  the  administration.  General  Grant  listened  in  silence,  —  per 
haps  I  might  say  sullen  silence.  There  was  present  a  gentleman 
who  has  been  in  Washington  for  forty  years,  and  he  came  away 
with  Mr.  Sumner.  As  they  came  down  the  stairs  of  the  Execu 
tive  Mansion,  the  gentleman  remarked,  '  What  is  the  matter 
with  the  President  ?  Do  you  think  he  understands  you  ?  '  'I 


426  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

should  think  he  might,'  replied  Sumner.  '  No,  he  doesn't,'  was 
the  response  ;  '  he  is  in  no  state  to  understand  anything.'  If 
Grant  never  heard  that  Sumner  took  back  that  courteous  pledge 
in  the  chamber  of  the  White  House,  it  was  because  his  brain  re 
fused  to  perform  its  office.  He  is  no  judge  of  the  veracity  of  the 
senator  from  Massachusetts. 

"  General  Grant  also  refers  to  the  action  of  Mr.  Sumner  in 
vindication  of  his  iriend,  Mr.  Motley.  The  case  is  a  grave  one. 
It  concerns  one  of  the  noblest  Americans  who  upheld  our  fame 
abroad.  General  Grant  intimates  that  he  was  no  American.  I 
knew  Lothrop  Motley  from  boyhood.  It  is  very  true  that,  in  his 
earlier  European  life,  he  drank  too  deep  of  the  foreign  spirit. 
In  1838  and  1840,  he  was  largely  European.  But  on  his  return 
to  this  country,  ten  years  before  the  war,  he  told  me,  '  This  is 
the  greatest  country  in  the  world.  This  is  a  noble  nation  to 
work  for.  It  is  the  noblest  people.  I  have  come  back  from 
Europe,  and  have  relearned  the  value  of  America  ;  have  come 
home  one  of  the  humblest  laborers,  to  make  justice  and  liberty 
prosper.'  It  came  from  his  heart.  He  was  made  over  into  a 
most  enthusiastic  American.  I  was  not  surprised  when  he 
sprang  to  the  helm  in  the  columns  of  the  London  Times.  It 
was  an  echo  of  the  old  talks  on  the  sidewalks.  When  Grant 
appointed  him  to  England,  he  appointed  the  warmest  American 
heart  that  ever  beat. 

"  Now,  when  the  senator  has  been  in  Mount  Auburn  for  three 
years,  when  his  pen  cannot  write  a  denial  nor  his  lips  utter  a 
rebuke,  now,  bearing  a  lie  on  its  lips,  comes  this  accusation, 
that  this  senator,  who  never  was  absent  from  the  Senate  one 
"  hour  (Mr.  Sumner  told  me,  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  '  I  never 
was  absent  one  hour  till  the  last  twelvemonth  '),  was  removed 
•  for  negligence.  Find  me  one  other  man  who  has  not  lost 
weeks,  or  even  months,  by  absence.  Mr.  Sumner  refused  op 
portunities  to  make  hundreds  of  dollars  by  lecturing,  because 
he  was  bound  by  his  duties  in  the  Senate. 

"  In  the  quarrel  with  Motley,  the  records  in  the  State  Depart 
ment,  in  black  and  white,  prove  that  the  administration  stooped 
to  a  falsehood.  Mr.  Fish  exhorted  Mr.  Sumner  to  take  the  Brit 
ish  mission, — told  him  he  ought  to  go  to  London.  Six  months 
later  the  Minister  was  recalled,  on  the  ground  that  he  had 
leaned  too  much  upon  the  opinion  of  a  great  Northern  senator. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  427 

Mr.  Sumner's  indignant  exclamation  to  Mr.  Fish  was,  '  If  Mr. 
Motley's  leaning  was  an  unpardonable  sin,  by  what  right  did 
you  sit  in  my  study  six  months  ago,  and  urge  me  to  go  to  Eng 
land,  and  press  my  views  on  the  Alabama  claims  ? '  He  said 
then  and  there,  '  Sir,  you  are  a  tool  of  the  President  for  base 
purposes;  and  this  removal  is  out  of  spite.'  And  it  is  true. 
The  testimony  is  on  the  files  of  the  diplomatic  service  itself."  1 

While  Mr.  Phillips  was  thus  occupied,  an  effort 
was  made  to  persuade  him  to  accept  a  Gubernatorial 
nomination,2  which  he  refused  to  do  ;  as  he  did  also, 
in  1878,  the  offer  of  a  nomination  for  Congress.3 

There  was  one  subject,  delicate  and  painful,  upon 
which  Wendell  Phillips  had  felt  strongly  for  half  a 
century,— the  right  treatment  and  care  of  the  insane. 
Indeed,  there  had  been  a  time  when  his  own  family 
had  discussed  the  expediency  of  shutting  him  up  in 
a  madhouse  as  an  Abolitionist  !  *  Without  doubt, 
scores  of  sane  men  and  women  whom  relatives  for 
one  reason  or  another  desired  to  get  out  of  the  way 
have  been  (shall  we  say  still  are  ?)  thrust  into  strait- 
jackets.  Mercenary  physicians  and  loose  laws  con 
duce  to  such  rascalities.  Feeling  all  this,  persuaded 
of  the  crying  need  of  vigilance,  and  taking  advan 
tage  of  a  local  stir  caused  by  a  flagrant  case  in  the 
neighborhood  (his  usual  cue),  Mr.  Phillips  suggested 
a  public  meeting  to  ventilate  the  theme.  It  was  held 
on  February  3d,  1879.  HG  made  a  thrilling  speech, 
demanding  the  lifting  of  the  veil  of  secrecy  which 
covered  the  mismanagement  of  insane  retreats.  As 
the  outcome,  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  was 

1  Vide  Dr.  Holmes' s  "  Memoir  of  Motley"  for  an  impartial  expose1 
of  the  subject  as  it  concerns  Motley. 

2  Vide  Boston  Commonwealth  in  the  fall  of  1877. 

3  Vide  New  York  Tribune,  November  4th,  1878. 

4  So  Mr.  Phillips  told  the  writer  in  1880. 


428  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

memorialized  to  pass  stringent  laws  concerning  the 
committal  of  persons  alleged  to  be  insane,  and  to 
secure  for  them  freedom  of  access,  and  the  right  of 
frequent  and  impartial  examinations.1 

Not  many  months  after  this  action,  the  tireless 
friend  of  human  kind  was  called  to  mourn  the  death 
of  Garrison.2  The  cordial  relations  between  these 
two  had  been  largely  resumed.  Mr.  Phillips  felt  the 
loss  beyond  expression.  A  part  of  his  own  being 
went  into  the  coffin.  On  Wednesday,  May  28th, 
1879,  m  the  presence  of  a  churchful  of  the  surviving 
colaborers  of  the  father  of  American  Emancipation, 
and  after  tender  remarks  from  a  number  of  old  com 
rades,  he  took  the  stand  to  utter  the  last  word.  It 
was  comprehensive,— the  acknowledgment  of  per 
sonal  indebtedness,  analysis,  characterization,  pathos, 
inspiration  ;  all  in  that  word.3  His  neighbor  and 
admirer,  Dr.  Samuel  G.  Green,  who  had  heard  him 
a  hundred  times,  and  in  all  moods,  .testifies  that  it 
was  the  most  exquisite  utterance  and  the  most  effec 
tive  he  ever  heard  even  from  Mr.  Phillips's  lips. 
'  Yet,"  he  adds,  "  it  was  extempore.  After  the  ad 
dress  I  chatted  with  him  in  his  study  and  asked  him 
about  his  preparation.  lie  pointed  to  a  piece  of  paper 
on  the  table.  I  took  it  up.  There  were  four  lines  of 
points  on  a  slip  the  size  of  a  small  envelope.  '  How 
could  you  do  it  ?  '  I  asked.  '  Ah  !  '  was  the  reply, 
'  I  was  at  work  on  that  address  for  forty  years  !'  "  4 


1  Vide  Boston  Daily  Advertiser  of  February  4th,  1879,  for  a  report 
of  the  meeting. 

2  He  died  in  New  York  City,  May  23d. 

3  Vide  tributes  to  William  Lloyd  Garrison  at  the  funeral  services, 
May  28th,  1879. 

4  Repeated  to  the  writer  by  Dr.  Green  in  September,  1889. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  429 

It  was  a  happy  coincidence  that  the  next  public 
call  that  reached  the  orator,  after  the  funeral  of  his 
beloved  comrade,  should  have  come  from  their  old 
proteges.  An  ominous  exodus  of  the  blacks  from 
the  South  was  in  progress.  Despised  and  skinned 
by  the  whites,  thousands  had  started  they  knew  not 
whither — anywhere  to  escape  from  the  perdition 
they  were  in.  The  Southerners,  unwilling  to  have 
them  remain,  yet  frightened  at  the  thought  of  losing 
their  workmen,  had  combined  to  resist  the  stampede, 
and  were  more  oppressive  in  their  repressive  than 
they  had  been  in  their  expulsive  methods. 

A  meeting  was  held  in  the  Tremont  Temple,  in 
June,  1879,  m  Boston,  to  raise  money  for  the  assist 
ance  of  those  who  wished  to  emigrate,  and  to  pro 
test  against  any  denial  of  their  right  to  travel.  Mr. 
Phillips  thundered  and  lightened  in  the  style  of  a 
quarter  of  a  century  before.  To  illustrate  the  con 
dition  of  the  colored  people,  he  told  this  story  of  a 
conversation  some  one  had  with  one  of  the  escaping 
band,  black  as  night  and  ignorant  as  black,— yet 
knowing  enough  to  want  to  get  away  ; 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?" 

"  Dunno." 

"  What  are  you  going  for  ?" 

"Dunno."   " 
•  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  when  you  get  there  ?" 

"  Dunno." 

"  Do  you  expect  to  improve  your  condition  ?" 

"  Couldn't  wuss  it  nohow."  l 

A  committee  was  appointed,  of  which  Mr.  Phillips 
was  one  ;  a  sum  of  money  was  raised  ;  a  protest  was 


Vide  New  York  Tribune,  June  25th,  1879. 


430  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

sent  to  Washington  ;  the  Government  moved  ;  but 
the  exodus  continues,  now  increasing,  now  dimin 
ishing,  but  always  proceeding,  to  the  present  day. 
Pharaoh  finds  it  hard  to  believe  in  the  omnipotence 
of  Justice  and  Love. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Phillips  passed  the  summer  of  1879 
at  Beverly.  On  July  i8th  he  writes  thence  to  a 
friend  : 

"  Here  we  are.  Tuesday  we  drove  down,  seventeen  miles,  in 
two  hours,  an  east  wind  favoring  the  horses.  Ann  bore  it  better 
than  we  feared  she  would.  She  enjoys  the  change  of  scene  and 
folks — and  the  stillness.  ...  I  shall  move  'round  and  keep 
active.  I  have  already  begun  pistol  practice,  and  amuse  myself 
seeing  how  many  times  in  twenty  I  can  plant  a  ball  within  the 
size  of  the  palm  of  my  hand  at  twenty  paces.  I  am  not  ashamed 
of  my  success.  .  .  .  The  woods  here  are  fine  ;  many  prefer  it  to 
Nahant, — which  I  do  not."  1 


1  To  Mrs,  E.  F.  C.  (MS,). 


VIII. 

THE  RADICAL  CLUB. 

IN  an  aristocratic  quarter  of  Boston,  in  an  old- 
fashioned,  roomy  mansion  resided  the  Rev.  John  T. 
Sargent,  small  in  frame,  large  in  soul.  More  than 
once  we  have  had  occasion  to  refer  to  his  intimacy 
with  Mr.  Phillips.  His  wife  was  a  kindred  soul,  and 
together  they  made  their  home  the  resort  of  the 
most  gifted  and  progressive  people  in  America. 
They  were  Unitarians  in  faith,  and  had  domesticated 
under  their  roof  an  institution  called  "  The  Radical 
Club,"  which  met  statedly  to  discuss  theological  and 
other  questions, — for  the  most  part,  it  must  be  con 
fessed,  from  an  ultra-liberal  standpoint.  In  attend 
ance  on  the  club  one  might  find,  almost  any  day, 
Emerson,  Longfellow,  Frothingham,  John  Weiss, 
Higginson,  Holmes,  Julia  Ward  Howe,  Henry 
James, — a  galaxy  of  celebrities. 

Mr.  Phillips,  though  not  in  theological  accord 
with  them,  was  a  frequent  guest  of  the  club,  and  al 
ways  welcome.  It  was  curious  to  observe  how  the 
radical  of  radicals  instantly  assumed,  when  religion 
was  upon  the  tapis,  a  position  of  exemplary  conserv 
atism.  Many  and  doughty  were  the  lances  he  broke 
in  these  tournaments  of  mind  as  the  champion  of 
orthodox)7. 

On  one  occasion  Mr.  Emerson  read  an  essay  on 
"  Religion,"  in  which  he  claimed  that  Christianity 


432  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

was  only  one  faith  more,  a  modification  of  Judaism 
or  Buddhism, — not  ultimate  truth,  but  a  well-meant 
approximation,  borrowing  its  ideas  from  the  Greeks, 
from  the  Chinese,  from  every  quarter. 
Wendell  Phillips  said,  in  reply  : 

"  He  had  never  met  a  man  of  the  old  faith, — one  worthy  to 
be  taken  as  a  type  of  anything, —who  denied  that  the  religious 
sentiment  had  found  meet  and  valuable  and  admirable  expres 
sion  in  the  mythologies  ;  and  he  thought  that  three  quarters  of 
all  the  investigations  which  had  been  made  into  Oriental  relig 
ions,  translations  of  their  books,  inquiries  into  their  history,  and 
analyses  of  their  faiths,  had  been  by  so-called  orthodox  men. 
Yale  College  was  as  learned  in  all  that  matter  as  Harvard.  He 
did  not  think,  therefore,  they  could  claim  that  the  truth,  as  it 
appeared  in  those  books  and  in  those  religions,  had  not  been 
recognized  by  orthodox  men.  The  point  where  they  separated 
was  not  there,  by  any  means.  Of  course,  the  old  religions  and 
mythologies  grew  out  of  an  inspired  religious  consciousness,  to 
a  certain  extent.  He  never  knew  a  man  who  denied  it.  Every 
intelligent  man  that  he  ever  met,  of  any  sect,  acknowledged  the 
contributions  to  the  literature  of  the  West  that  had  been  made 
by  many  of  the  older  faiths  ;  they  had  not  neglected,  they  had 
not  depreciated,  that  development.  On  all  this  we  agree. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  astronomical  speculation  in  the  world, 
yet  that  does  not  interfere  with  the  fact  that  there  is  a  true 
astronomical  method.  Because  a  great  many  scholars  had 
speculated  about  the  stars,  did  that  show  that  Copernicus  and 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  are  not  upon  the  right  track  ?  The  question 
was,  '  Is  there  any  indication  anywhere  that  we  have  touched, 
even  slightly,  on  absolute  truth  in  any  of  the  mythologies  ?  ' 
When  it  was  claimed  that  some  parts  of  the  New  Testament 
could  be  found  in  .^Eschylus  and  Sophocles  and  Epictetus,  he 
admitted  it  ;  but,  when  any  man  said  that  the  New  Testament 
could  be  found  in  Confucius  and  Buddha,  he  stopped,  and  de 
manded  the  proof.  He  did  not  know  that  any  Jew  by  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ  had  said,  '  Do  unto  others  as  ye  would  that 
others  should  do  to  you  ;'  but  he  knew  that  the  best  scholarship 
of  Europe  had  scrutinized  every  line  of  the  record  in  the  most 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  433 

exhaustive  manner,  until  we  know,  if  we  know  anything,  that, 
three  hundred  years  after  his  death,  he  was  supposed  to  have 
said  it.  So  far  they  were  on  solid  ground.  It  was  said  that 
Confucius,  five  hundred  years  before  Christ,  said,  '  Do  not  do 
unto  another  as  you  would  not  have  another  do  to  you.'  There 
was  a  remarkable  similarity  in  these  sentences,  and  very  little 
probability  that  a  Jew,  in  that  narrow  valley,  ever  heard  of  a 
Chinese.  How  did  they  know  Confucius  said  it  ?  All  they 
knew  about  the  Chinese  was  not  older  than  three  hundred  and 
fifty  years.  If  they  could  prove  to  him  that,  three  hundred  years 
after  the  death  of  Confucius,  he  was  supposed  to  have  uttered 
those  words,  he  would  believe  it,  but  not  now  ;  and  he  did  not 
give  any  more  weight  to  the  legends  about  Buddha.  No  story 
forty  years  old  could  be  relied  upon  without  scrutiny. 

"  But  suppose  it  was  admitted  that  Confucius  and  Buddha  did 
say  just  what  Christ  did  ?  Steam  and  water  were  the  same  ele 
ments  ;  but  water  would  not  move  a  locomotive  ;  steam  would. 
The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  might  be  paralleled  in  Sophocles  ; 
they  might  find  a  great  deal  in  Confucius  :  but  one  was  water, 
the  other  steam  ;  one  had  moved  the  world,  the  other  had  not. 
The  proof  that  there  was  something  unusual  there  was  seen  in 
the  results.  India  had  all  the  intellectual  brilliancy  that  Greece 
had  ;  she  touched  all  the  problems,  exhausted  all  the  intellectual 
debate,  thousands  of  years  ago  ;  and  there  she  lies  to-day.  On 
the  other  hand,  here  was  Europe.  She  had  made  marvellous 
progress  ;  and,  with  the  single  exception  of  race,  there  was  no 
element  mixed  in  the  European  caldron  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  Asiatic.  Unless  they  were  going  to  lay  on  this  distinction 
of  race  the  whole  difference  between  European  and  Asiatic  de 
velopment,  they  had  nothing  but  Christianity  to  account  for  it. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  it  was  wiser  to  claim  for  Christianity  the 
largest  share  in  the  merit  of  European  civilization. 

"  Everybody  knew  that  the  Chinese  had  hospitals  before 
Christ,  if  we  are  to  trust  history  ;  everybody  knew  all  about 
their  progress  in  civilization  ;  but  they  make  no  progress  to-day. 
The  bee  could  make  an  eight-sided  cell  better  than  Brunei  could 
make  it,  but  the  bee  can  make  nothing  else.  The  Chinese  had 
not  advanced  for  a  thousand  years.  They  had  every  spring 
board  and  fulcrum  and  motive-power  to  go  ahead,  and  had  not. 
Europe  had  constantly  gone  ahead.  We  had  saved  all  we  had 


434  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

got,  and  gained  more.  We  had  taken  the  classic  and  the  Roman 
civilization, — taken  their  law,  their  ethics,  their  religious  ideas, 
their  idea  of  popular  rights, — and  we  had  carried  them  on. 
Europe  was  the  hand  and  brain  of  the  world  to-day  ;  the  pioneer, 
the  constructor,  the  administrator  of  the  world  to-day  ;  and 
there  was  nothing  underlying  her  to  make  her  so,  except  race 
and  Christianity.  Other  portions  of  the  world  had  had  the  same 
intellect.  Tocqueville  had  told  us,  in  his  report  to  the  French 
Institute,  that  there  was  no  theory  or  dream  of  social  science 
ever  debated  in  Europe  that  could  not  be  found  in  the  Hindoo 
discussions.  The  difference  was  not  caused  by  a  lack  of  in 
tellect.  Here  was  a  fact  to  be  explained,  and  it  could  not  be 
brushed  away  by  saying  this  man  and  the  other  made  a  very 
near  approach.  No  doubt  that  was  so  :  nobody  ever  denied  it. 
God  never  left  any  race,  nor  any  man,  nor  any  time,  without 
Himself ;  and  these  twilights,  and  approaches  to  noon,  were 
seen  everywhere  in  history.  But  they  had  got,  at  last,  the 
Copernican  theory  ;  and  no  fact  appeared  that  it  did  not  explain. 
They  had  got,  at  last,  the  true  chemical  analysis  ;  and  that  went 
down,  and  weighed  the  atoms.  They  explained  all  new  dis 
coveries.  The  reason  why  he  believed  in  Sir  Isaac  Newton  was, 
that  he  gave  the  key  to  every  fact,  discovered  no  matter  where. 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  could  tell  a  great  many  beautiful  dreams 
about  astronomy,  but  they  did  not  explain  the  facts.  Christi 
anity  had  faced  the  facts  and  explained  them.  He  claimed, 
therefore,  that  there  was  something  essentially  different  in  it 
from  the  religious  experience  of  other  races."  1 

At  another  sitting-,  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Channing  read 
a  paper  on  "  The  Christian  Name."  When  the  dis 
cussion  began  Mr.  Phillips  remarked  : 

"  Christianity  is  a  great  moral  power,  the  determining  force 
of  our  present  civilization,  as  of  past  steps  in  the  same  direc 
tion.  Jesus  is  the  divine  type  who  has  given  His  peculiar  form 
to  the  modern  world.  Speculations  as  to  why  and  how  may 
differ,  but  we  see  the  fact.  We  cannot  rub  out  history.  Europe 
shows  a  type  of  human  character  not  paralleled  anywhere  else. 


"  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  pp.  9  13,  15,  18,  19. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  435 

The  intellect  of  Greece  centred  around  power  and  beauty  ;  that 
of  Rome  around  legal  justice.  The  civilization  of  modern 
Europe  was  inspired  by  a  great  moral  purpose.  Imperfect  as  it 
was,  and  limited  in  many  ways,  the  religious  element  there  had 
steadily  carried  those  nations  forward.  The  battle  for  human 
rights  was  finally  fought  on  a  Christian  plane.  Unbelief  has 
written  books,  but  it  never  lifted  a  million  men  into  a  united 
struggle.  The  power  that  urged  the  world  forward  came  from 
Christianity.  Mr.  Channing  has  explained  to  us  its  origin.  I 
look  at  its  results,  and  they  lead  to  the  same  conclusion.  He 
claims  to  be  Christian.  So  do  I.  The  best  part  of  the  life  of 
Europe  may  be  traced  to  Christianity. 

"  The  religious  literature  of  Asia  has  been  compared  with  the 
Christian  Scriptures.  The  comparison  is  not  just.  That  liter 
ature  has  many  merits,  and  contains  scattered  sayings  and  pre 
cepts  of  great  excellence  ;  but  there  are  heaps  of  chaff  in  that, 
and  in  the  writings  of  the  early  Christian  Fathers  ;  none  in  the 
Gospels  and  Epistles.  Of  the  mediasval  writings,  one  half  was 
useless.  Of  the  boasted  works  of  Confucius,  seven  tenths  must 
be  winnowed  out,  to  find  what  the  average  reason  of  mankind 
would  respect."  J 

One  day,  John  Weiss  spoke  on  "  Heart  in  Re 
ligion,"  and  contended  that  Jesus  was  effeminate. 
Whereupon  Mr.  Phillips  said  : 

"  You  speculate  as  to  whether  Jesus  was  a  masculine  char 
acter.  Look  at  the  men  who  have  learned  of  Him  most  closely, 
— at  Paul  and  Luther  and  Wesley.  Were  they  effeminate  ?  yet 
the  disciple  is  but  a  faint  reflection  of  his  Master.  The  char 
acter  from  which  came  the  force  which  has  been  doing  battle 
erer  since  with  wrong  and  falsehood  and  error  was  nothing  less 
than  masculine  ;  but  sentiment  is  the  toughest  thing  in  the 
world, — nothing  else  is  iron."  2 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Hedge  punctuated  a  session  with 
an  essay  on  "  Spinoza,"  "who,"  he  said,  "sup 
poses  a  single  and  a  whole  substance,  comprising  all 


"  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  pp.  76,  77. 
2  Ib.,  pp.  147,  148. 


436  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

that  is,  and  of  which  all  phenomena,  all  finite  sub 
stances,  are  modes.  Therefore  he  is  said  to  have 
turned  the  devil  out  of  the  world." 

Wendell  Phillips  hereupon  "  protested  against  our 
judgment  of  men  by  their  theories.  Theoretically 
Calvinism  dispenses  with  works  ;  but  where  do  we 
find  a  higher  standard  of  morals  or  better  works 
than  among  the  Calvinists  ?  While  human  nature 
is  capable  of  a  feeling  of  remorse — as  if,  having  a 
will,  one  might  have  done  right  and  had  done  wrong 
—we  shall  not  be  able  to  put  aside  a  sense  of  per 
sonal  responsibility,  or  to  turn  the  devil  out  of  doors. 
Spinoza  gives  no  theory  which  explains  away  the 
fact  of  suffering,  and  he  had  seen  suffering  which  he 
felt  sure  was  unmitigated  evil."  ' 

Once  "  Quakerism"  was  under  consideration. 
Mr.  Phillips  said  : 

"  Quakerism  showed  the  limitations  of  human  nature.  A  re 
ligious  genius  arises,  and  bears  the  precise  testimony  needed  by 
the  world  at  that  time  ;  but  if  he  tries  to  organize  or  perpetuate 
himself,  he  fails.  George  Fox  was  a  great  religious  genius. 
William  Penn  was  a  trimmer,  who,  if  he  had  lived  in  New  Eng 
land  in  our  time,  would  have  been  a  dough-face. 

"  The  decline  of  Quakerism  began  early.  Josiah  Foster  in 
that  denomination  was  a  pope.  Elizabeth  Fry  was  a  noble 
woman  ;  but  in  religion  was  a  narrow-minded  bigot,  who  would 
not  stay  in  the  house  with  Lucretia  Mott  because  the  latter  did 
not  believe  in  the  Trinity.  George  Fox  was  motion.  When  he 
ceased  to  move  Quakerism,  it  fell  back.  It  has  not  continued 
the  aggressive  attitude  which  he  took.  Quakerism  has  taken 
care  of  its  own  poor,  but  has  never  combated  pauperism  in  the 
community  at  large. 

"  Fox  shows  us  how  little  we  owe  to  colleges.  The  great  re 
ligious  ideas  of  modern  Europe  all  came  from  the  people.  In- 


"  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  p.  160. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  437 

tellect  led  by  scholars  opposes  progress.  If  Fox  were  here 
among  us,  he  would  be  as  radical  now  as  he  was  then,  and 
would  be  again  imprisoned  as  a  disturber  of  society."  J 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  on  a  certain  morning, 
read  an  essay  on  "Jonathan  Edwards,"  dwelling 
with  emphasis  upon  that  theologian's  tenet  of  "  in 
fant  damnation"  as  the  key  to  his  system. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Bartol,  who  was  in  the  chair,  called 
on  Mr.  Phillips,  who  remarked  : 

"  The  picture  drawn  by  Dr.  Holmes,  though  truthful  and 
accurate  so  far  as  it  goes,  cannot  be  full  or  complete.  As  a 
whole,  it  cannot  be  just  to  Edwards  :  there  must  be  other  sides, 
which  would  soften  and  redeem  it  ;  other  doctrines,  that  explain 
and  fill  out  the  full  religious  life  and  character,  and  justify  the 
profound  and  loving  respect  our  fathers  had  for  him.  Else  how 
can  we  account  for  the  great  fact  of  New  England,  which  is  the 
outcome  of  his  and  similar  pulpits  ? 

"  No  one  doubts  that  a  large  majority  of  the  New  England 
pulpits,  one  hundred  years  ago,  sympathized  with,  and  sustained, 
Edwards.  These  horrible  doctrines,  which  Dr.  Holmes  shocked 
us  with,  were  not  Edwards's  individual  and  singular  views,  but 
the  common  faith  of  New  England.  Now,  religion  and  theo 
logical  doctrines  are  great  factors  in  forming  character.  If  the 
pulpit  of  New  England  taught  only,  or  mainly,  these  hateful, 
narrow,  inhuman,  and  degrading  doctrines, — if  such  was  the 
character  of  its  teaching, — whence  came  this  generous,  public- 
spirited,  energetic,  hopeful,  broad,  humane,  self-respectful, 
independent,  and  free-thought  New  England,  ready  for  every 
good  work,  and  willing  for  every  necessary  sacrifice  ? 

"  We  must  have  a  theory  broad  enough  to  cover  all  the  facts. 
It  used  to  be  said,  that  '  He  who  makes  religion  twelve,  and 
the  world  thirteen,  is  no  true  New  Englander.'  His  religion 
was  three  quarters  of  a  Yankee.  What  you  gentlemen  here  call 
'  free  religion  '  and  '  liberal  Christianity '  is  of  very  recent 
growth,  and  of  still  very  narrow  influence.  But  character  is  of 
slow  growth.  Any  theory  which  narrows  and  degrades  the  New 

1  "  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  pp.  178,  179. 


438  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

England  pulpit  of  the  eighteenth  century  fails  to  account  for  the 
community  which  grew  up  under  it." 

To  one  who  suggested  as  an  explanation  that  our 
fathers  never  really  believed  such  doctrines,  Mr. 
Phillips  replied  : 

"  It  will  hardly  do  to  maintain  that  the  hard-headed  and  practi 
cal  Yankee,  so  keen  and  ready  witted  in  affairs,  so  free  and  bold 
in  civil  life,  the  world's  intellectual  pioneer,  did  not  know  or 
understand  what  he  believed,  in — to  him — the  most  important 
matter  of  all,  his  religion.  Four  generations  passed  over  the 
stage,  and  left  us  this  Commonwealth,  their  creation, — sober, 
painstaking,  serious,  earnest  men.  We  cannot  accept  the  theory 
which  represents  their  religion  as  carelessly  taken  up,  loosely 
held,  and  only  half  understood.  Great  jurists,  practical  states 
men,  profound  scholars,  liberal  founders  of  academy,  college, 
and  hospital,  boldly  searching  the  world  over  for  means  to  per> 
feet  institutions  on  which  the  world  now  models  itself, — were 
these  minds  crippled  by  absurd  dogmas,  worldlings  without 
faith,  or  hypocrites  afraid  to  avow  their  real  belief  ?  True  phil 
osophy  never  accepts  such  theories  to  explain  history.  It  is 
more  natural  and  philosophical  to  suppose  that  the  sketch  we 
have  listened  to,  admirable  as  it  is,  has  not  given  all  the  sides 
of  the  picture." 

Dr.  Bartol  suggested  that  Edwards's  parish  repu 
diated  him  :  after  twenty  years  listening  to  him, 
they  voted  against  him  ten  to  one. 

"  Mr.  Phillips  replied,  '  That  argument  proves  too  much. 
We  have  just  exhausted  language  in  praising  the  eminent  Chris 
tian  spirit  and  untold  influence  of  Dr.  W.  E.  Channing.  But 
we  all  know  that,  after  Channing  had  preached  twenty  years  to 
men  who  idolized  him,  they  mobbed  him  for  his  Anti-Slavery 
ideas,  and  refused  him  the  use  of  his  own  church  for  the  funeral 
services  of  the  Abolitionist  Follen,  Channing's  most  intimate 
and  valued  friend.  Channing  failed  as  thoroughly,  forty  years 
ago,  in  teaching  his  church  justice  and  humanity,  as  Edwards 
did,  a  hundred  years  ago,  in  bringing  his  hearers  to  relish  the 
idea  of  infant  damnation.  It  will  not  do  for  Unitarians  in 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  439 

Boston  to  throw  that  Northampton  vote  in  Edwards's  face. 
Northampton  never  mobbed  Edwards  for  his  infant  damnation, 
as  Boston  did  Channing  for  his  Anti-Slavery,  in  Faneuil 
Hall.'"1 

These  are,  of  course,  disjointed  utterances,  the 
disjecta  membra  of  running-  discussion.  But  they  in 
dicate  Mr.  Phillips's  views.  It  was  well  understood, 
among-  his  friends,  that  he  believed  in  the  orthodox 
creed,  in  the  orthodox  sense. 


1  "  Reminiscences  of  the  Radical  Club,"  pp.  371-73. 


IX. 

LYCEUM  EXPERIENCES. 

THE  life  of  one  who  makes  a  business  of  lecturing 
is  not  easy.  The  popular  conception  is  to  the  con 
trary.  We  see  a  brilliantly  lighted  hall,  a  well- 
dressed  audience,  an  orator,  who,  as  he  steps  to  the 
desk  in  faultless  attire,  is  received  with  applause  ; 
and  we  think,  "What  a  charming  career!"  The 
separation  from  home,  the  weary  travel,  the -broken 
sleep,  the  annoying  delays  or  interruptions,  the  dis 
comfort  of  different  and  indifferent  hotels,  the  expo 
sure  to  dyspepsia  from  the  mixed  diet,  the  dealing 
with  all  kinds  of  men,  the  being  out  in  all  sorts  of 
weather, — these  are  prosaic  facts  which  are  hardly 
offset  by  an  hour's  experience  in  that  more  or  less 
attractive  hall. 

Mr.  Phillips  was  a  (peripatetic)  philosopher,  and 
extracted  what  of  comfort  and  fun  he  might  from  it 
all,  though  conscious  enough  of  the  hardships  of  the 
life.  Moving  about  as  he  did,  he  adapted  and  ad 
justed  himself  to  it.  He  was  a  great  tea-drinker — a 
/r<?-totaler  ;  English  breakfast  tea  being  his  favorite 
beverage.  This  he  carried  in  his  travelling-bag,  and 
made  or  had  made  always  and  everywhere.  He  also 
made  an  inseparable  companion  of  a  large  gray 
shawl,  which  he  habitually  spread  between  the 
sheets  of  the  bed  and  wrapped  himself  in — thus 
avoiding  the  colds  and  rheumatism  that  come  from 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  441 

northeast  chambers  and  damp  bed-clothes.  Always 
abstemious,  he  was  specially  so  before  speaking,  his 
usual  supper  at  such  times  consisting1  of  three  raw 
eggs  and  as  many  cups  of  tea. 

The  orator's  repertoire  was  encyclopaedic.  It 
embraced  a  vast  list  :  Travel,  like  "  Street  Life  in 
Europe  ;"  science,  like  "  The  Lost  Arts  ;"  current 
politics,  like  "  The  Times,"  or  "  The  Lesson  of  the 
Hour;"  reform,  like  'Temperance,"  'Labor," 
"  Woman,"  "  The  Indians,"  or,  in  earlier  days, 
"  Anti-Slavery  ;"  controversy,  like  "  Inferences  from 
Froude  ;"  political  economy,  like  "  Finance  ;"  polit 
ical  philosophy,  like  "Agitation,"  which  was  for 
many  years  his  favorite  college  commencement  ad 
dress  ;  education,  like  "  Training  ;"  legal  topics, 
like  "  Law  and  Lawyers,"  and  "  Courts  and  Jails  ;" 
foreign  matters,  like  "  The  Irish  Question  ;"  lec 
tures  of  polite  interest,  like  ' '  The  Press  ;"  biog 
raphy,  like  "Toussaint,"  "  O'Connell,"  "Sir 
Harry  Vane,"  and  '*  Sumner  ;"  religion,  like  "  Chris 
tianity  a  Battle,  not  a  Dream."  Perhaps  no  speaker 
of  his  day,  or  any  day,  treated  a  greater  variety  of 
topics,  or  with  more  even  excellence,  than  Wendell 
Phillips  ;  so  that  it  was  difficult  to  say  in  which  de 
partment  he  was  most  at  home.  Such  was  his  mag 
netism  of  manner  and  witchery  of  style  that  he  could 
talk  entertainingly  about  a  broorn-handle.  The 
speaker  was  always  interesting,  whether  the  subject 
was  or  not.  Men  and  women  went  to  hear  him 
without  interest  in  the  theme,  often  predetermined 
to  dislike  him,  and  sat  breathless  through  the  hour, 
and  were  amazed  when  he  stopped  to  find  that  sixty 
or  ninety  minutes  had  elapsed. 

Another  peculiarity  of  his  lectures   was  that  he 


442  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

never  spoke  merely  to  amuse.  However  light  and 
airy  the  music,  there  was  always  a  sub-bass  of  moral 
purpose.  He  was  even  more  instructive  than  enter 
taining.  No  one  ever  had  a  higher  conception  of 
obligation.  In  his  view,  influence  was  a  trust,  to  be 
exerted,  in  Lord  Bacon's  phrase,  "  for  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  relief  of  man's  estate." 

As  illustrative  of  his  experiences,  we  open  a  bud 
get  of  his  letters,  written  on  the  road,  at  various 
times,  and  to  different  friends. 

To  a  young  lady  who  was  a  kind  of  protege,  of 
whom  Mrs.  Phillips  was  fond,  and  who,  in  his  ab 
sence,  ministered  to  his  wife,  thus  making  it  possible 
for  him  to  be  away, — he  writes  from  Illinois,  "  in 
the  cars,"  and  with  a  lead  pencil  : 

"What  can  I  do  for  you,  in  return  for  all  your  kindness  to 
Ann,  my  dear  child  ?  Thanks  seem  to  me  very  poor  pay.  Ann 
has  spoken  of  how  much  you  have  been  to  her,  in  her  letters. 
It  is  a  great  comfort  to  me  to  have  you  able  to  be  so  much  to 
her.  .  .  .  The  weather  is  dull — only  two  days  since  I  left  that  I 
have  seen  the  sun.  Rain,  clouds,  damp,  mud,  and  grim  heavens. 
Still  the  audiences  are  large. 

"  Since  my  letter  from  Chicago,  I  have  been  shaken  in  omni 
buses  and  hacks  to  a  terrible  degree.  The  mud  has  been  fear 
ful.  And  then  the  sudden  quick  freeze,  and  it  is  iron  in  deep 
ruts — horrible  to  ride  on.  I  rejoice  that  dear  old  Boston  (how 
1  love  those  streets  !)  has  no  such  inflictions." 

To  the  same  friend  he  gives  a  description  of  one 
of  the  oil  towns  in  Pennsylvania  : 

"  Here  I  am  in  an  oil  town — mud  over  the  hubs  of  the  wheels  ; 
literally,  one  horse  was  smothered  in  it :  the  queerest  crowd  of 
men,  with  trousers  tucked  in  their  boots  ;  no  privacy — hotels  all 
one  crowd — chambers  mere  thoroughfares, — everybody  passing 
through  at  will.  And  here  I  must  be  all  Sunday,  unless  some 
train  will  carry  me  on  in  the  direction  I  wish. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  443 

"  I  find  some  of  the  Boston  people.  Everybody  here  is  mak 
ing  money  :  the  first  place  I  have  found  where  this  is  the  case. 
Explanation — they  have  just  struck  oil !" 

Again,  the  next  month,  he  writes  : 

"It  has  been  intensely  cold  out  here.  I  have  been  in  tlie 
smaller  towns,  and  have  had  poor  hotels  and  a  generally  hard 
time — rushed  from  one  train  to  another,  and  puffed  from  station 
to  station.  ...  In  eleven  days  of  travel  I  have  slept  in  a  regular 
bed  but  four  nights.  Still  I  have  been  fortunate  in  filling  every 
engagement,  and  '  Sumner  '  has  been  the  favorite  subject. 

"  In  Milwaukee  I  was  at  the  '  Plunkington,'  where  I  had  a 
fine  suite  of  rooms, — bath,  chamber,  parlor  with  pier-glass  ten 
feet  high  and  five  feet  broad  ;  all  the  rooms  opening  into  a  cen 
tral  hall.  Nothing  showy,  but  just  comfortable." 

From  Philadelphia,  in  the  midst  of  absorbing  social 
and  professional  duties,  he  is  thoughtful  of  a  friend 
in  Boston  who  has  artistic  tastes,  and  writes  : 

"  DEAR  ELEANOR  :  Don't  fail  to  go  and  see  the  pictures 
Williams  and  Everett  are  exhibiting.  They  are  eminently  worth 
studying. 

"  Opposite,  as  you  mount  the  stairs,  is  one  of  three  gems.  It 
is  a  weird,  lonesome  desert.  Joseph  and  Mary  are  travelling 
across  it.  He  has  fallen  asleep  on  the  sand.  Mary  and  the 
baby  Christ  are  lying  in  the  arms  of  the  Sphinx,  also  asleep. 
It  is  very  original.  Above  it  is  another  by  the  same  artist 
(Merson,  I  think  :  there  is  a  scrap  lying  on  the  table  telling  you 
about  him  and  it)  ;  a  tall  Egyptian  girl — handsome  ;  but  the 
value  of  the  canvas  lies  in  the  wonderful  cloth.  You  can  hardly 
believe  her  dress,  Indian  cotton,  is  not  real.  And  her  girdle,  a 
Roman  scarf,  is  so  true  ;  not  too  highly  colored,  but  the  thing 
itself.  Then  as  you  stand  looking  on  your  right  is  a  picture  of 
a  dozen  sailors,  taking  *their  '  nooning  '  sleep — wonderfully  life 
like  and  happily  grouped,  and  telling  the  story  of  labor  and  rest 
— admirable  !  It  is  worth  an  hour's  study.  Be  sure  and  carry 
your  glasses." 

From  Davenport,  la  ,  he  writes  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Sargent : 


444  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

"  DEAR  JOHN  :  I  wish  I  had  your  sunbeam  pen  and  a  dainty 
sheet  of  scented  paper  to  write  this  letter  with  and  on.  Its  im 
port  demands  both. 

"  I,  the  traveller,  the  '  elderly  gentleman,'  have  been — kissed  ! 
in  Illinois  !  Put  that  in  your  pipe  and  smoke  it,  if  you  can  with 
out  its  choking  your  envious  soul  !  Yes,  kissed  !  !  on  a  public 
platform,  in  front  of  a  depot,  the  whole  world  envying  me. 
Don't  you  wish  you  could  be  invited  out  to  such  a  glorious  land  ? 
'  Who  did  it  ? '  do  you  ask.  I  am  not  sure  your  jealous  heart  de 
serves  to  know.  .  .  .  But  I  will  be  merciful.  It  was  an  old 
man  of  seventy-three  years — a  veteran  Abolitionist,  a  lovely 
old  saint.  In  the  early  days  of  the  cause  we  used  to  kiss  each 
other  like  the  early  Christians  ;  and  when  he  saw  me  he  resumed 
the  habit. 

"  Dare  I,  after  such  a  communication,  ask  to  be  remembered 
to  your  wife  and  household  ?" 

On  January  ist,  1879,  ne  writes  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Sargent  : 

*  The  happiest  of  New  Years  to  you  both.  May  the  sunniest 
blue  sky  overarch  all  your  course.  Health,  peace,  comfort  and 
troops  of  friends  be  with  you  and  'round  you  !  This  is  written 
on  a  snowy  night,  before  a  soft  coal  fire  in  Erie,  Pa, 

"  Ask  Ann  to  show  you  my  description  : — Six  feet  in  my 
socks— sixty-eight  years  old— and  with  '  squirrel  tails '  for 
whiskers." 

He  writes  to  a  gentleman  in  Boston  who  was 
thought  to  resemble  him,  with  mock  solemnity,  as 
follows,  from  Cleveland,  O.  : 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  You  know  how  I  once  admired  your  modesty 
when  you  seemed  pleased  with  being  taken  for  me.  Allow  me 
to  minister  to  your  still  further  growth  in  that  Christian  grace. 

"  The  other  evening,  before  my  lecture,  a  wild,  frowzy,  hag 
gard,  uncombed  Yankee  came  to  me  and  said  :  '  Often,  sir, 
when  I  am  sitting  in  a  tavern,  men  will  walk  'round  me  three  or 
four  times  and  then  swoop  down  and  say,  "Mr.  Phillips,  I 
believe!" 

"  Now,  you  remember  enough  ot  the  mathematics  they  pound- 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  445 

ed  into  you  at  college  to  know  that  '  things  that  are  equal  to  a 
third  are  equal  to  each  other.'  So  you  may  comfort  yourself  with 
the  reflection  that  you  resemble  my  gaunt  Yankee  double  ! 

"  With  sympathy, 

"  Your  '  DOUBLE." 

Mr.  Phillips  was  once  invited  to  attend  a  large 
meeting  in  a  country  town,  where  several  church 
choirs  were  to  give  a  musical  entertainment  ;  and 
they  wanted  him  to  deliver  an  appropriate  address. 
He  declined,  saying  that  he  knew  nothing  of  music, 
could  not  sing,  and  did  not  know  one  note  from  an 
other.  The  Committee  of  Arrangements  implored 
and  insisted,  again  and  again.  At  last,  overborne 
by  their  entreaties,  he  amiably  (he  would  have  said 
weakly)  consented;  relying,  probably,  on  some  un 
foreseen  inspiration.  His  faith  was  justified.  As  he 
sat  in  the  pulpit,  surrounded  by  clergymen  whose 
choirs  were  discoursing  sacred  music,  and  wonder 
ing  what  he  should  say,  he  spied,  among  the  singers, 
a  colored  man.  Instantly  the  inspiration  came. 
The  moral  influence  of  music,  its  power  to  bring  into 
harmony  human  souls,  was  his  theme. 

The  county  papers  praised  his  address,  and  his 
wife  laughingly  told  him  that  he  had  obtained  ap 
plause  on  false  pretences. 

An  invitation  to  go  to  Vermont,  to  lecture  upon 
trees,  he  could  not  be  induced  to  accept.  He  said 
that  he  knew  an  oak  from  an  elm  ;  but  that  was 
about  the  extent  of  his  knowledge  upon  that  subject. 
.  Mr.  Phillips  went  one  night  to  lecture  in  a  country 
town.  His  subject  had  not  been  announced.  The 
Committee  asked  him  how  many  lectures  he  had 
brought.  ''  All  of  them,"  was  the  answer,  '.'  here  ;" 
tapping  his  forehead.  The  Committee  could  not  agree 


446  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

which  they  would  have,  and  referred  the  decision  to 
the  audience.  They,  too,  were  divided,  some  pre 
ferring  "  Toussaint  L'Ouverture, "  while  others 
voted  for  the  "Lost  Arts."  Finally  an  old  man 
arose  and  said  :  "  S'pose  we  have  both."  Then 
addressing  the  orator,  who  sat  an  amused  listener, 
he  continued,  "Couldn't  you  give  us  both?"  The 
humor  of  the  situation,  and  the  Yankee  sharpness 
which  prompted  a  request  for  two  lectures  for  one 
fee,  amused  Mr.  Phillips.  He  consented  and  gave 
both,  winding  from  one  to  the  other,  though  the 
subjects  were  totally  unrelated,  with  such  deftness 
that  it  was  impossible  to  detect  where  they  were 
joined,  and  they  seemed  parts  of  a  connected  whole. 
The  audience  retired  greatly  pleased,  and  feeling 
that  they  had  got  their  money's  worth  ! 

Wherever  he  went  autograph-hunters,  album  in 
hand,  lay  in  wait  for  him.  Mr.  Phillips  good-na 
turedly  responded  and  (as  he  said)  "  made  his  mark" 
in  a  thousand  places.  His  favorite  autographs 

were  ; 

"  Count  that  day  lost 
Whose  slow  descending  sun 
Sees  from  thy  hand 
No  worthy  action  done." 

To  this  he  usually  added  : 

"  John  Brown  taught  these  lines  to  each  of  his  children  : 

"  '  Peace,  if  possible. 
Justice  at  any  rate.'  " 

Or  this  by  Ellen  Hooper  Drake  : 

"  I  slept  and  dreamed  that  life  was  beauty. 
I  waked — to  find  that  life  was  duty. 
Was  then  thy  dream  a  shadowy  lie  ? 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  447 

Toil  on,  sad  heart,  courageously, 
And  thou  shalt  find  that  dream  to  be 
A  noonday  light,  and  truth  to  thee." 

And  these  lines  by  Lowell,  his  favorite  of  all : 

"  Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold, 
Wrong  forever  on  the  throne  ; 
But  that  scaffold  sways  the  future, 
And  behind  the  dim  unknown 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow, 
Keeping  watch  above  his  own." 

With  the  possible  exception  of  Mr.  John  B.  Gough, 
Mr.  Phillips  travelled  longer  and  more  constantly 
than  any  other  public  speaker  in  America.  Yet 
though  always  on  the  cars,  in  the  steamboat,  or,  in 
earlier  days,  in  the  stage-coach,  he  never  met  with 
a  serious  accident — striking  proof  of  the  comparative 
safety  of  travel. 

But— easy  work  ?    Ask  those  who  know  ! 


BOOK  IV. 


EVENING. 

1880-1884. 


I. 

STILL   CONTENDING. 

IN  the  nature  of  the  case,  a  self-governed  com 
munity  can  permanently  exist  only  on  the  basis  of 
virtue  and  intelligence.  Intemperance  is  the  nega 
tion  of  both.  Hence,  like  every  thoughtful  observer, 
Mr.  Phillips,  as  we  know,  hated  grog  and  grog 
shops.  Always  active  for  temperance,  as  his  life 
proceeded  he  redoubled  his  exertions.  He  was 
never  too  busy  to  come  up  to  its  help  against  the 
mighty.  Thus,  in  February,  1880,  he  spoke  in  the 
State  House,  in  Boston,  against  license  : 

"  We  don't  care  what  a  man  does  in  his  own  parlor.  He  may 
drink  his  champagne  or  whiskey,  and  we  don't  care.  But  the 
moment  a  man  opens  his  shop,  and  sells,  we  will  interfere. 
The  moment  he  undertakes  to  sell  liquor,  the  State  has  an  abso 
lute  and  unlimited  right  to  step  in.  The  question  demands  the 
extreme  use  of  this  power.  Every  man  familiar  with  the  execu 
tion  of  the  law  knows  that  three  fourths  of  crime  is  due  to  rum, 
which  fills  your  prisons  and  almshouses,  and  burdens  your  gal 
lows.  In  every  case  in  Great  Britain  and  this  country  where  the 
rum-shops  have  been  closed,  freedom  from  crime,  freedom  from 
taxation,  follows.  The  law  is  unchanging  :  no  liquor,  no  crime  ; 
no  liquor,  no  tax.  Wherever  the  English  blood  flows,  it  would 
seem  that  the  stimulus  of  the  stomach  had  supreme  power. 
There  are  over  two  hundred  laws  of  this  Legislature  endeavor 
ing  to  curb  this  devil,  but  every  one  knows  that  we  have  never 
succeeded  in  curbing  it  for  a  moment.  All  over  the  State  you 
will  find  whole  towns  that  have  been  sold  for  a  rum-debt. 
There  was  no  law  in  the  city  on  that  sunny  afternoon  in  October 


452  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

when  Garrison  was  trampled  underfoot.  So  it  is  to-day.  There 
has  not  been  a  mayor  for  forty  years  who  would  enforce  a  liquor 
law,  and  there  won't  be  for  forty  years  to  come.  There  is  not 
a  Republican  to-day  who  can  look  into  another  Republican's 
face,  and  think  of  the  license  law,  without  laughing.  It  is  but 
the  tub  thrown  to  the  whale.  Prohibition  means  something. 
License  has  been  tried  in  every  shape.  As  long  ago  as  1837  the 
fifteen-gallon  law  was  tried,  and  numerous  other  devices  have 
been  tried  since  ;  but  we  have  never  gained  a  point.  Every 
man  who  walks  the  street,  knows  that,  whenever  we  have  had 
a  prohibitory  law,  there  has  been  an  immediate  change  in  the 
amount  of  drinking.  Under  the  license  law,  sometimes  less 
arrests  are  reported  ;  but  there  is  nothing  so  easy  to  make  lie 
as  figures.  If  a  poor  man  get  his  wheel  caught  in  a  rut,  there 
will  seven  policemen  rush  to  his  rescue  ;  but  let  there  be  a 
drunken  row,  you  won't  find  a  policeman  within  forty  rods. 
There  are  four  thousand  rum-shops- in  Boston  ;  and  taking  these 
four  thousand,  and  their  four  thousand  best  customers,  you  will 
have  eight  thousand  votes, — a  larger  number  than  decides  any 
election.  You  can't  execute  a  license  law."  1 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Bartol,  in  the  pulpit  of  the  "  West 
(Unitarian)  Church,"  had  preached  a  series  of  ser 
mons  in  the  spring  of  1880,  in  which  he  advocated 
moderate  drinking,  declared  it  "  untrue  that  total 
abstinence  is  requisite  either  for  self-protection  or 
for  example's  sake,"  and  branded  prohibition  as 
"fanaticism."  In  a  pointed  letter,  which  was 
widely  published,  Mr.  Phillips  contrasted  the  teach 
ings  of  Dr.  Bartol  with  those  of  his  predecessor,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Charles  Lowell,  father  of  the  poet,  James 
Russell  Lowell,  who  had  recommended  total  absti 
nence.  He  adds  : 

"  I  wonder  if  the  present  generation  of  West  Church  sheep 
are  intelligent  enough  to  perceive  the  difference  between  these 


1  Vide  Boston  Commonwealth,  spring  of   1880. 


WENDELL  PHILLIPS.  453 

two  pulpits.     And,  if  so,  which   do   they  look  up   to   with  the 
better  satisfaction  ? 

"  Some  temperance-men  are  surprised  and  indignant  at  what 
they  consider  Dr.  Bartol's  prostitution  of  the  Liberal  pulpit. 
Such  men  forget  the  history  of  the  temperance  movement  in 
Boston.  When  Rev.  John  Pierpont,  forty  years  ago,  returned 
from  the  F-~f,  he  stated,  in  his  pulpit  in  Hollis  Street,  that  the 
first  thing  he  saw  there  (in  Smyrna,  I  believe)  was  a  barrel  of 
New  England  rum, — N.  E.  RUM  burned  into  its  head  in  large 
capitals.  He  made  this  the  text  for  an  earnest  and  eloquent 
agitation  of  the  temperance  question.  The  richest  parishioners 
were  rum-makers  and  rum-sellers  :  their  rum  was  then  stored, 
I  think,  in  the  very  cellar  of  his  church.  I  will  not  mention 
their  names  :  their  children  continue  the  manufacture  and  the 
traffic.  They  set  to  work,  by  reducing  his  salary,  refusing  to 
pay  one  dollar  of  it,  mortgaging  the  church  for  heavy  debt,  and 
by  every  means,  to  drive  Pierpont  from  the  pulpit.  Finding 
this  ineffectual,  they  announced  their  determination  to  buy  up 
every  pew  that  could  be  had,  and  thus,  securing  a  majority  of 
votes,  dismiss  him  from  his  charge.  Francis  Jackson,  a  name 
always  to  be  written  by  Bostonians  in  letters  of  gold,  and  the 
late  venerable  Samuel  May,  led  the  temperance-men  in  resisting 
this  plot.  They  succeeded  in  form  /  they  vindicated  Mr.  Pier 
pont  on  every  trial,  leaving  no  smell  of  fire  on  his  garments  ; 
but  they  could  not  'hold  the  fort.'  In  fact,  rum  triumphed. 
The  wealthy  rum-sellers  of  the  city,  whether  attending  in 
Hollis  Street  or  not,  bought  pews  there, — pews  they  never  used, 
— and  finally  obliged  Mr.  Pierpont  to  agree  to  vacate  his  pulpit. 
During  the  seven  years  of  this  hard-fought  battle  between  the 
penniless,  eloquent,  and  devoted  apostle  in  the  pulpit  and  the 
wealthy  rum-sellers  in  the  pews,  the  Unitarian  clergy  of  Suffolk 
County  gave  the  public  to  understand  that  they  renounced  all 
ministerial  fellowship  with  Mr.  Pierpont,  never  exchanged  with 
him,  or  extended  to  him  professional  recognition  or  courtesy. 
With  two  or  three  exceptions  (Rev.  J.  T.  Sargent,  Dr.  Gannett, 
and  one  or  two  others — Mr.  Theodore  Parker  was  not  then 
preaching  in  Boston),  all  the  Liberal  clergy  shut  him  from  their 
pulpits.  In  their  last  letter  to  Mr.  Pierpont,  the  rum-sellers 
taunted  him  with  the  fact  that  hardly  one  of  his  clerical  brethren 
in  Boston  would  exchange  with  him.  And,  in  his  letter  of  fare- 


454  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

well  to  the  Unitarian  Association,  Mr.  Pierpont  refers  to  this  de 
sertion,  and  affirms  that  this  repudiation  of  him  by  his  brother 
clergymen  was  the  special  thing  which  made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  remain  in  the  Hollis  Street  pulpit ;  and,  further,  his  cer 
tain  knowledge  that  this  course  of  conduct  toward  him  was 
adopted,  on  their  part,  on  purpose,  and  with  the  intention,  to 
drive  him  from  that  pulpit. 

"  Mr.  Bartol,  therefore,  does  not  prostitute  the  Liberal  pul 
pit ;  although  one  might  sigh  for  the  purer  Gospel  Loweh 
preached  in  the  West  Church.  Judged  by  the  example  and  con 
duct  of  the  vast  majority  of  the  Liberal  clergy  of  Boston  for  the 
last  forty  years,  such  sermons  as  Dr.  Bartol  has  of  late  delivered 
are  just  the  preaching  for  which  the  Liberal  pulpit  was  created 
and  is  sustained. 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS."  ' 

The  summer  of  1880  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Phillips  spent 
in  Princeton,  Mass.,  whence  he  writes  under  date  of 
June  23d  : 

"  We  are  in  comfortable  quarters — view  everywhere  and  over 
everything.  ...  I  laze  and  ride  on  horseback,  exploring  the 
drives.  In  one  ride  I  can  see  Moriadnock,  twenty-five  miles 
north,  and  the  blue  hills  of  Milton,  forty-five  east.  The  rest  of 
the  time  I  sleep.  I  weigh  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  pounds, 
and  don't  feel  as  old  as  I  am.  .  .  .  The  town  is  full  of  famous 
men  and  fashionable  women."  2 

To  another  correspondent,  he  gives,  July  2ist,  an 
amusing  description  of  affairs  : 

"  Up  in  the  clouds  here,  only  coming  down  to  the  lower  world 
once  a  week,  a  letter  from  you  would  be  cheerful  at  any  time 
But  now  it  is  rain,  rain,  rain,  rain — Wachusett  has  hardly  taken 
off  its  night-cap  for  a  week.  In  such  dampness  a  dry  letter  from 
you  (if  that  were  possible)  would  be  a  blessing.  Fancy,  then, 
when  on  one  of  the  most  drenching  of  all  afternoons,  I  sailed 


1  Q.oteJ  in  Austin's  "  Life  and   Times  of   Wendell  Phillips,"  pp. 
326  sqq. 

8  Letter  to  Mrs.  E.  F.  C.  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  455 

down  to  the  village  and  swam  back  bringing  your  pleasant  note 
in  my  teeth,  as  the  Spanish  fellow  (Camoens,  was  it  ?)  did  his 
poems.  .  .  .  Did  you  or  your  wife  put  that  good  story  in  the 
journals  of  a  fellow  who  offered  to  a  young  lady,  and  she  said  : 
4  You  scare  me  !  '  Modestly  sitting  quiet  the  beau  forbore  to 
disturb  her  for  ten  minutes,  when  she  cried  out — '  Scare  me 
again  !  ' 

"  I  have  kept  awake  thus  far,  but  it  is  an  effort,  as  the  quiet 
is  so  profound.  A  passer-by  is  an  event.  The.  only  noise  ever 
t  made  is  by  the  hens.  The  only  thing  that  ever  happens  is  when 
we  miss  the  cat. 

"  But  we  always  keep  awake  at  the  sunsets — they  are  splen 
did  I"1 

These  restful  days  and  nights  put.  the  orator's 
body  and  mind  in  training-  for  the  fall  and  winter. 
And  the  work  he  did  made  it  clear  that  his  vigor 
was  unimpaired.  In  fact,  two  of  the  most  effective 
blows  he  ever  dealt  were  struck  straight  from  the 
shoulder  in  1881. 

The  first  was  at  the  Rev.  Dr.  Howard  Crosby,  of 
New  York  City,  the  Goliath  of  moderate  drinking, 
who  in  January  went  to  Boston  and  gave  a  lecture 
which  he  called  "A  Calm  View  of  Temperance," 
but  which  was  "  calm"  only  by  that  figure  of  speech 
which  names  a  thing  by  its  opposite — like  the  Abbe 
Hue's  account  of  a  pestiferous  hole  in  China,  sacred 
to  dirt  and  tenanted  by  vermin,  but  called  by  Chinese 
pride,  "  The  hotel  of  the  Beatitudes."  Dr.  Crosby 
was  then  Chancellor  of  the  New  York  University. 
•  He  had  long  been  a  foremost  authority  in  Greek 
grammar.  He  claimed  that  he  had  patented  a  sys 
tem  (high  license)  which  would  prove  more  effective 
for  temperance  in  a  twelvemonth  than  prohibition 


3  Letter  to  Rev.  J.  T.  Sargent  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

would  or  could  in  a  lifetime.  The  doctor  certainly 
created  a  sensation  ;  and,  aside  from  the  reckless 
manner  in  which  he  flung  about  the  roughest  words 
in  the  dictionary,  made  as  able  a  showing1  as  his  side 
allowed. 

The  clergy  of  Boston  invited  Mr.  Phillips  to  re 
ply  ;  which  he  did  on  January  24th,  in  the  Tremont 
Temple,  before  a  vast  assembly,  with  annihilating 
effect.  The  subject  in  controversy  is,  and  promises 
to  be,  of  living  interest.  Hence,  a  somewhat  full 
synopsis  of  Mr.  Phillips's  remarks  should  seem  im 
portant.  Imprimis,  the  orator  gave  a  careful  and 
honest  analysis  of  the  New  Yorker's  arguments, 
which  he  answered  seriatim.  The  points  are  indi 
cated  in  the  following  extracts  : 

"  Dr.  Crosby  says  '  total  abstinence  is  contrary  to  revealed 
religion.'  What  is  total  abstinence?  It  is  abstaining  from  the 
use  of  intoxicating  liquors  as  a  beverage  ourselves  and  agreeing 
with  others  to  do  so.  How  is  this  contrary  to  revealed  religion  ? 
Can  any  one  cite  a  text  in  the  Bible  or  a  principle  laid  down 
there  which  forbids  it  ?  Of  course  not  ;  no  one  pretends  that  he 
can.  But  Dr.  Crosby's  argument  is  that  Jesus  drank  intoxicating 
wine  and  allowed  it  to  others.  There  is  no  proof  that  He  ever 
did  drink  intoxicating  wine.  But  let  that  pass,  and  suppose, 
for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  that  He  did.  What  then  ?  To  do 
what  Jesus  never  did,  or  to  refuse  to  do  what  He  did — are  such 
acts  necessarily  '  contrary  to  revealed  religion'  ?  Let  us 
see. 

"  Jesus  rode  upon  an  '  ass  and  a  colt,  the  foal  of  an  ass.'  We 
find  it  convenient  to  use  railways.  Are  they  '  contrary  to  re 
vealed  religion'  ?  Jesus  never  married,  neither  did  most  of 
His  apostles.  Is  marriage,  therefore,  '  contrary  to  revealed  re 
ligion'  ?  Jesus  allowed  a  husband  to  put  away  his  wife  if  she 
had  committed  adultery,  he  himself  being  judge  and  executioner. 
We  forbid  him  to  do  it,  and  make  him  submit  to  jury  trial  and 
a  judge's  decision.  Are  such  divorce  laws,  therefore,  '  contrary 
to  revealed  religion'  ?  Jesus  said  to  the  person  guilty  of  adul- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  457 

tery  :  '  Go  and  sin  no  more.'  We  send  such  sinners  to  the  State 
prison.  Are  our  laws  punishing  adultery,  therefore,  '  contrary 
to  revealed  religion'  ?  There  were  no  women  at  the  Last  Sup 
per.  We  admit  them  to  it.  Is  this  '  contrary  to  revealed  re 
ligion'  ?  We  see  therefore  that  Christians  may,  in  altered  cir 
cumstances,  do  some  things  Jesus  never  actually  did,  and  that 
their  so  doing  does  not  necessarily  contravene  His  example  ; 
nor,  unless  it  violates  the  principles  He  taught,  does  it  tend  to 
undermine  Christianity. 

"  Now,  there  is  a  class  of  biblical  scholars  and  interpreters 
who  do  assert  that,  wherever  wine  is  referred  to  in  the  Bible 
with  approbation,  it  is  unfermented  wine.  Of  this  class  of  men 
Dr.  Crosby  says,  '  Their  learned  ignorance  is  splendid  ;'  they 
are  '  inventors  of  a  theory  of  magnificent  daring  ;'  they  '  use 
'false  texts  '  and  '  deceptive  arguments  ;'  '  deal  dishonestly  with 
the  Scriptures  ;'  '  beg  the  question,  and  build  on  air  ; '  their 
theory  is  a  '  fable  '  born  of  '  falsehoods,'  supported  by  '  Scrip 
ture  twisting  and  riggling  ;'  their  arguments  are  '  cobwebs,' 
their  zeal  outstrips  their  ]udgment,  and  they  plan  to  '  under 
mine  the  Bible.'  Who  are  these  daring,  ridiculous,  and  illogi 
cal  sinners  ?  As  I  call  them  up  in  my  memory,  the  first  one 
who  comes  to  me  is  Moses  Stuart,  of  Andover,  whose  lifelong 
study  of  the  Bible,  and  profound  critical  knowledge  of  both  its 
languages,  place  him  easily  at  the  head  of  all  American  com 
mentators.  '  Moses  Stuart's  Scripture  View  of  the  Wine  Ques 
tion  '  was  the  ablest  contribution,  thirty  years  ago,  to  this  claim 
about  unfermented  wine,  and  still  holds  its  place  unanswered 
and  unanswerable.  By  his  side  stands  Dr.  Nott,  the  head  of 
Union  College,  with  the  snows  of  ninety  winters  on  his  brow. 
Around  them  gather  scores  of  scholars  and  divines,  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  In  our  day  Taylor  Lewis  gives  to  the 
American  public,  with  his  scholarly  indorsement,  the  exhaus 
tive  commentary  by  Dr.  Lees  on  every  text  in  the  Bible  which 
speaks  of  wine, — a  work  of  sound  learning,  widest  research, 
and  fairest  argument.  The  ripe  scholarship,  long  study  of  the 
Bible,  and  critical  ability  of  these  men,  entitle  them  to  be  con 
sidered  experts  on  this  question.  In  a  matter  of  Scripture  inter 
pretation,  it  would  be  empty  compliment  to  say  that  Dr.  Crosby 
is  worthy  to  loose  the  latchet  of  their  shoes.  Now,  the  truth  is, 
the  only  '  castle  built  in  the  air  '  in  this  matter,  is  the  baseless 


458  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

idea  that  the  temperance  movement  uses  dishonest  arguments, 
or  wrests  the  Scripture,  because  it  maintains,  that,  where  the 
drinking  of  wine  as  an  article  of  diet  is  mentioned  in  the  Bible 
with  approbation,  unfennented  wine  is  meant.  The  fact  is, 
there  are  scholars  of  repute  on  both  sides  of  the  question.  But 
we  do  not  claim  too  much  when  we  say  that  the  weight  of 
scholarly  authority  is  on  our  side. 

"  It  is,  indeed,  mournful  to  look  back  and  notice  how  uni 
formly  narrow-minded  men,  hide-bound  in  the  bark  of  tradition, 
conventionalism,  and  prejudice,  have  thrown  the  Bible  in  the 
way  of  every  forward  step  the  race  has  ever  made.  When  the 
Reformation  claimed  that  every  Christian  man  was  his  own 
priest  and  entitled  to  read  the  Bible  for  himself  the  cry  was  : 
4  You  are  resisting  and  undermining  the  Bible.' 

"  One  of  the  best  proofs  that  the  Bible  is  indeed  a  divine  book 
is,  that  it  has  outlived  the  misrepresentations  of  its  narrow  and 
bigoted  friends. 

"  But  look  at  it  a  moment.  The  New  Testament  is  a  small 
book,  and  may  be  read  in  an  hour  or  two.  It  is  not  a  code  of 
laws,  but  the  example  of  a  life  and  a  suggestion  of  principles. 
It  would  be  idle  to  suppose  that  it  could  describe  in  detail,  spe 
cifically  meet  every  possible  question,  and  solve  every  difficulty 
that  the  changing  and  broadening  life  of  two  or  three  thousand 
years  might  bring  forth.  The  progressive  spirit  of  each  age  has 
found  in  it  just  the  inspiration  and  help  it  sought.  But  when 
timid,  narrow,  and  short-sighted  men  claimed  such  exclusive 
ownership  in  it  that  they  refused  to  their  growing  fellows  the 
use  of  its  broad,  underlying  principles,  and  thus  demanded  to 
have  new  wine  .put  into  old  bottles,  of  course  the  bottles  burst 
and  their  narrow-surface  Bible  became  discredited  ;  but  the  real 
Bible  soared  upward,  and  led  the  world  onward  still,  as  the 
soul  rises  to  broader  and  higher  life  when  the  burden  of  a  nar 
row  and  mortal  body  falls  away. 

"  From  the  Bible  Dr.  Crosby  passes  to  the  great  weapon  of 
the  temperance  movement — the  pledge.  This  he  calls  '  un 
manly,'  'a  strait  jacket  ;'  says  it  kills  self-respect  and  under 
mines  all  character. 

"  Hannah  More  said  :  '  We  cannot  expect  perfection  in  any 
one  ;  but  we  may  demand  consistency  of  every  one.' 

"  It  does  not  tend  to  show  the  sincerity  of  these  critics  of  our 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  459 

cause  when  we  find  them  objecting  in  us  to  what  they  themselves 
uniformly  practice  on  all  other  occasions.  If  we  continue  to 
believe  in  their  sincerity,  it  can  only  be  at  the  expense  of  their 
intelligence.  Dr.  Crosby  is,  undoubtedly,  a  member  of  a  church. 
Does  he  mean  to  say  that,  when  his  church  demanded  his  sig 
nature  to  its  creed  and  his  pledge  to  obey  its  discipline,  it  asked 
what  it  was  '  unmanly  '  in  him  to  grant  and  what  destroys  an 
individual's  character — that  his  submission  to  this  is  '  foregoing 
his  reasoning,'  'sinking  back  to  his  nonage,'  etc.  ?  Of  course 
he  assents  to  none  of  these  things.  He  only  objects  to  a  temper 
ance  pledge,  not  to  a  church  one. 

"  The  husband  pledges  himself  to  his  wife,  and  she  to  him, 
for  life.  Is  the  marriage  ceremony,  then,  a  curse,  a  hindrance 
to  virtue  and  progress  ? 

"  Society  rests  in  all  its  transactions  on  the  idea  that  a  solemn 
promise,  pledge,  assertion  strengthens  and  assures  the  act.  The 
witness  on  the  stand  gives  solemn  promise  to  tell  the  truth  ;  the 
officer  about  to  assume  place  for  one  year  or  ten,  or  for  life, 
pledges  his  word  and  oath  ;  the  grantor  in  a  deed  binds  himself 
for  all  time  by  record  ;  churches,  societies,  universities  accept 
funds  on  pledge  to  appropriate  them  to  certain  purposes  and  to 
no  other — these  and  a  score  more  of  instances  can  be  cited.  In 
any  final  analysis  all  these  rest  on  the  same  principle  as  the 
temperance  pledge.  No  man  ever  denounced  them  as  unmanly. 
I  sent  this  month  a  legacy  to  a  literary  institution,  on  certain 
conditions,  and  received  in  return  its  pledge  that  the  money 
should  ever  be  sacredly  used  as  directed.  The  doctor's  prin 
ciple  would  unsettle  society  ;  and,  if  one  proposed  to  apply  it  to 
any  cause  but  temperance,  practical  men  would  quietly  put  him 
aside  as  out  of  his  head.  These  cobweb  theories,  born  of 
isolated  cloister-life,  do  not  bear  exposure  to  the  mid-day  sun, 
or  the  rude  winds  of  practical  life.  This  is  not  a  matter  of 
theory.  Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  attest  the  value  of 
the  pledge.  It  never  degraded,  it  only  lifted  them  to  a  higher 
life.  We  who  never  lost  our  clear  eyesight  or  level  balance 
over  books,  but  who  stand  mixed  up  and  jostled  in  daily  life, 
hardly  deem  any  man's  sentimental  and  fastidious  criticism  of 
the  pledge  worth  answering.  Every  active  worker  in  the  tem 
perance  cause  can  recall  hundreds  of  instances  where  it  has 
been  a  man's  salvation. 


460  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

"  But  our  agitation  of  the  drink  question  is  '  bulldozing  '  and 
'intimidation.'  This  is  only  an  unmanly  whine. 

"  What  is  the  pulpit  ?  Does  it  not  take  admitted  truths  and 
press  them  home  on  conscience  ?  Or  does  it  not  seek  to  prove 
principles  the  listener  does  not  admit,  and  then  urge  him  to 
their  practice  ?  Does  it  not  criticise,  and  affirm,  and  denounce, 
seeking  to  waken  the  indifferent,  convince  the  doubting,  and 
claim  consistent  action  of  all  ?  Does  it  wait  until  the  sinner 
acknowledges  its  principles  before  it  denounces  his  action  as  a 
sin  ?  By  no  means.  Is  church  discipline  visited  only  on  those 
who  see  and  confess  their  sins  ?  Is  it  not  used  to  rouse  them  to 
a  sense  of  the  principle  they  will  not  acknowledge,  and  hold 
them  up  to  the  rebuke  and  take  from  them  the  respect  of  their 
fellows  ?  If  our  temperance  agitation  is  '  intimidation,'  then 
nine  tenths  of  the  land's  pulpits  are  bulldozers  and  the  other 
tenth  is  useless.  What  does  the  Bible  say  of  those  who  prophesy 
smooth  things,  and  whose  order  was  Nathan  obeying  when  he 
said,  '  Thou  art  the  man  ?  ' 

"  Dr.  Crosby  says  it  is  false,  our  constant  assertion  that  mod 
erate  drinking  makes  drunkards.  Will  he  please  tell  us  where, 
then,  the  drunkards  come  from  ?  Certainly  teetotalers  do  not 
recruit  these  swelling  ranks.  Will  he  please  account  for  the 
million-times  repeated  story  of  the  broken-hearted  and  despair 
ing  sot,  or  the  reformed  man,  that  '  moderate  drinking  lulled 
them  to  a  false  security  until  the  chain  was  too  strong  for  them 
to  break  ?  '  Will  he  please  explain  that  confession  forced  from 
old  Sam  Johnson,  and  repeated  hundreds  of  times  since  by  men 
of  seemingly  strong  resolve,  '  I  can  abstain  :  I  can't  be  moder 
ate  ?  '  Do  not  the  Bible,  the  writers  of  fiction,  the  master 
dramatists  of  ancient  and  modern  times,  the  philosopher,  the 
moralist,  the  man  of  affairs, — do  not  all  these  bear  witness  how 
insidiously  the  habits  of  sensual  indulgence  creep  on  their  vic 
tim  until  he  wakes  to  find  himself  in  chains  of  iron,  his  very  will 
destroyed  ? 

"  But  our  movement  is  the  delight  of  rum-sellers  and  the 
great  manufacturer  of  drunkards.  How  is  it,  then,  that  anxious 
and  terror-stricken  rum-sellers  assemble  in  conventions  to  de 
nounce  us  and  plan  methods  of  resisting  us  ?  No  such  conven 
tions  were  ever  heard  of  or  needed  until  the  last  twenty  years. 
How  is  it  that  they  mob  our  lecturers  and  break  up  our  meet- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  461 

ings  ?  Was  Dr.  Crosby  or  any  of  his  class  ever  mobbed  by 
rum-sellers  ?  How  is  it  that,  the  moment  we  get  one  of  the 
prohibitory  laws,  *  which  delight  rum-sellers,'  passed,  these  de 
lighted  men  form  parties  to  defeat  every  man  who  voted  for  it, 
crowd  the  lobbies  to  repeal  it,  and  never  rest  until,  by  threat  or 
bribes,  they  have  repealed  it  ?  If  rum-sellers  long  and  pray  for 
the  coming  of  the  millennium  of  prohibition,  why  don't  they  all 
move  down  to  Maine,  and  get  as  near  to  the  desired  heaven  as 
they  can  ?  If  rum-sellers  delight  in  our  total-abstinence  labors, 
how  ungrateful  in  them  to  allow  their  organs  all  over  the  world 
to  misrepresent  and  deny  what  little  success  even  Dr.  Crosby 
allows  we  have  had  in  Maine  !  They  ought  to  chuckle  over  it 
and  scatter  the  news  far  and  wide.  When  Dr.  Crosby  has  an 
swered  half  these  questions,  we  have  some  more  difficulties  to 
propound  which  trouble  us,  about  the  unaccountable  freaks  of 
these  delighted  rum-sellers,  who,  delighted  as  they  are  with  our 
work,  yet  never  can  bear  or  praise  the  very  men  who,  Dr.  Crosby 
says,  are  constantly  employed  spending  time  and  money  in 
'  delighting  '  these  unreasonable  fellows. 

"  Dr.  Crosby  says  that  we  are  the  cause  of  all  the  drunken 
ness,  that  the  temperance  movement  is  a  failure,  must  be,  and 
ought  to  be. 

"  I  will  prove  that  Christianity  is  a  failure  in  the  same  way. 
The  famous  unbelievers,  down  from  Voltaire,  through  Mill,  to 
the  last  infidel  critic,  prove  Christianity,  by  the  same  sort  of 
argument,  to  be  a  failure  and  the  cause  of  most  of  the  evils  that 
burden  us.  Exaggerate  all  the  evil  that  exists,  especially  those 
vices  that  will  never  wholly  die  while  human  nature  remains 
what  it  is  ;  belittle  and  cast  into  shade  all  the  progress  that  has 
been  made  ;  dwell  with  zest  on  the  new  forms  of  sin  that  each 
age  contributes  to  the  infamy  of  the  race  ;  keep  your  eyes  firmly 
in  the  back  of  your  head,  and  insist  that  there's  nothing  equal 
to  what  we  had  in  old  times — not  even  the  snow-storms  or  the 
St.  Michael  pears — and  the  thing  is  done. 

Before  our  movement  began  three-quarters  of  the  farms  of 
Massachusetts  were  sold  under  the  hammer  for  rum-debts.  You 
could  not  enter  a  public  house  in  country  or  city,  of  the  first- 
class  or  the  smaller  ones,  except  through  a  grog-shop.  Their 
guests  felt  mean  if  they  did  not  at  dinner  order  some  kind  of 
wine,  and  often  ordered  it  when  they  did  not  wish  it.  Now  the 


462  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

grog-room  is  hidden  from  sight  ;  men  slink  into  it  ;  and  not 
more  than  one  man  in  ten  at  the  most  fashionable  hotels,  and 
not  one  in  fifty  in  common  inns,  orders  wine  at  dinner.  Then 
the  sideboard  of  every  well-to-do  house  was  covered  with 
liquors,  and  every  guest  was  urged  to  drink  ;  the  omission  to 
do  which  would  have  been  held  a  gross  neglect,  if  not  an  insult. 
No  man  was  buried  without  a  lavish  use  of  liquor  ;  no  stage 
stopped  without  the  traveller  being  thought  mean  if  he  did  no- 
help  the  house  by  taking  a  drink.  Now  one  may  travel  hun 
dreds  of  miles  on  rails  which  allow  no  liquor  in  their  stations. 
Every  farmer  furnished  drink  to  his  men  ;  famous  doctors  weni 
drunk  to  their  patients  ;  the  first  lawyer  in  the  Middle  States 
was  not  singular  when  he  held  on  by  the  rail  in  order  to  stand 
and  argue,  half-drunk,  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  ;  rich  men  saw  to  it  that  every  clergyman  who  attended 
a  convention  was  plied  with  wine  ;  and  the  preacher  of  the 
concio  ad  clerum  was  fed  on  brandy  punch  to  place  him  on  a 
more  exhilarated  level  than  his  hearers.  If  a  man  caught  sight 
of  a  grog-shop,  he  was  as  sure  he  had  arrived  in  a  Christian 
land  as  the  shipwrecked  sailor  was  when  he  caught  sight  of  a 
gibbet.  Dr.  Crosby  then  had  everybody,  lay  and  clerical,  on  his 
side  in  construing  the  Bible  ;  whereas  now  we  are  in  a  healthy 
majority. 

"  Even  if  the  statistics  showed  that  the  amount  of  liquor  con 
sumed  increased  as  fast  as  our  population  and  wealth  do — which 
they  do  not  show,  but  just  the  contrary — that  would  not  be  suffi 
cient  evidence  to  prove  that  our  movement  has  failed.  The 
proper 'comparison  is  between  what  we  were  in  1820  and  what 
<we  should  have  been  now  had  not  some  beneficent  agency 
arrested  our  downward  progress.  These  evils,  left  to  themselves, 
increase  by  no  simple  addition,  but  in  cubic  ratio. 

"  Does  Dr.  Crosby  fancy  this  active  movement  and  vast  mass 
of  fact,  opinion,  and  testimony  can  exist  without  beneficial  in 
fluence  in  an  age  ruled  by  brains  ?  He  does  not,  then,  under 
stand  moral  forces  or  his  own  times.  When,  twenty-five  years 
ago,  Frederick  Douglass  was  painting  the  Anti-Slavery  movement 
as  a  failure  unless  we  would  load  our  guns,  Sojourner  Truth 
asked  :  '  Frederick,  is  God  dead  ?  '  When  I  see  the  doctor's  un 
belief  in  the  efficacy  of  the  moral  power  and  the  weight  of  this  mass 
of  conviction,  I  am  tempted  to  ask  him  :  '  Is  your  God  dead  ?  ' 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  463 

"  Dr.  Crosby  closes  by  stating  his  plan  and  panacea.  It  is  a 
regulated  license.  I  will  not  delay  you  by  criticising  his  or  any 
other  license  plan.  The  statute  books  in  forty  States  are  filled 
with  the  abortions  of  thousands  of  license  laws  that  were  never 
executed,  and  most  of  them  were  never  intended  to  be.  We 
have  as  good  a  license-law  in  this  State  as  was  ever  devised  ; 
and  yet  it  leaves  such  an  amount  of  defiant,  unblushing  grog- 
selling  as  discourages  Dr.  Crosby,  and  leads  him  to  think  noth 
ing  has  been  done  at  all.  His  own  city,  with  license  laws,  is 
yet  so  ruled  and  plundered  by  rum,  that  timid  statesmen  advise 
giving  up  republicanism,  and  borrowing  a  leaf  from  Bismarck 
to  help  us.  License  has  been  tried  under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances,  and  with  the  best  backing  for  centuries, — ten  or 
twelve,  at  least.  Yet  Dr.  Crosby  stands  confounded  before  the 
result.  We  have  never  been  allowed  to  try  prohibition  except  in 
one  State,  and  in  some  small  circuits.  Wherever  it  has  been 
tried,  it  has  succeeded.  Friends  who  know,  claim  this  :  enemies 
who  have  been  for  a  dozen  years  ruining  teeth  by  biting  files, 
confess  it  by  their  lack  of  argument,  and  lack  of  facts  except 
when  they  invent  them."  1 

The  second  tremendous  blow  of  our  athlete  of  re 
form  was  dealt  at  Harvard  College, — a  blow  between 
the  eyes.  He  received  an  invitation  to  deliver  the 
centennial  Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration  in  the  summer  of 
1 88 1.  He  accepted,  and  on  June  3Oth  spoke  on 
"  The  Scholar  in  a  Republic,"  with  the  official,  pro 
fessional,  and  mercantile  culture  of  thirty  States  for 
an  audience.  "  It  was,"  remarks  Mr.  Higginson, 
who  was  present,  "  the  tardy  recognition  of  him  by 
his  own  college  and  his  own  literary  society,  and 
proved  to  be,  in  some  respects,  the  most  remarkable 
effort  of  his  life.  He  never  seemed  more  at  his  ease, 
more  colloquial,  and  more  extemporaneous  ;  and  he 


1  Vide  Phillips's  "  Review  of  Dr.  Crosby's  '  Calm  View  of  Temper 
ance.'  "  Published  by  National  Temperance  Society.  New  York, 
1 88 1,  passim. 


464  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

held  an  unwilling  audience  spellbound,  while  bating 
absolutely  nothing  of  his  radicalism.  Many  a  re 
spectable  lawyer  and  divine  felt  his  blood  run  cold, 
the  next  day,  -when  he  found  that  the  fascinating 
orator  whom  he  had  applauded  to  the  echo  had 
really  made  the  assassination  of  an  emperor  seem  as 
trivial  as  the  doom  of  a  mosquito."  1 

The  Rev.  James  Freeman  Clarke,  an  alumnus  of 
Harvard,'  and  an  auditor,  has  also  left  an  account  of 
the  event,  which  we  transcribe  : 

"  When  I  knew  that  Wendell  Phillips  was  to  give  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  oration  at  Cambridge,  I  was  very  curious  to  know  what 
course  he  would  take.  I  said,  '  He  has  two  opportunities, 
neither  of  which  he  has  ever  had  before.  He  has  always  spoken 
to  the  people.  Now  he  is  invited  to  address  scholars.  He  has 
an  opportunity  to  deliver  a  grand  academic  discourse,  and  to 
show,  that,  when  he  chooses  to  do  it,  he  can  be  the  peer  of 
Everett  or  Sumner  on  their  own  platform  of  high  culture.  He 
can  leave  behind  personalities,  forget  for  the  hour  his  hatreds 
and  enmities,  and  meet  all  his  old  opponents  peacefully,  in  the 
still  air  of  delightful  studies.  ..This  is  an  opportunity  he  has 
never  had  before,  and  probably  will  never  have  again.' 

"  '  But  there  is  another  and  different  opportunity  now  offered 
him.  Now,  for  the  first  and  only  time,  he  will  have  face  to  face 
before  him  the  representatives  of  that-Cambridge  culture  which 
has  had  little  sympathy  with  his  past  labors.  He  can  tell  them 
how  backward  they  were  in  the  old  Anti-Slavery  contest,  and 
how  reluctant  to  take  part  in  any  later  reforms.  If  he  has  been 
bitter  before,  he  can  be  ten  times  as  bitter  now.  He  can  make 
this  the  day  of  judgment  for  the  sins  of  half  a  century.  This 
opportunity,  also,  is  unique.  It  will  never  come  again.  Can  he 
resist  this  temptation,  or  not  ?  ' 

"  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  he  would  accept  and  use  both 
opportunities,  but  he  did  so.  He  gave  an  oration  of  great  power 
and  beauty,  full  of  strong  thoughts  and  happy  illustrations,  not 


Higginson's  obituary  notice,  pp.  14,  15. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  465 

unworthy  of  any  university  platform  or  academic  scholar.  It 
was  nearly,  though  not  wholly,  free  from  personalities  ;  but  it 
was  also  one  long  rebuke  for  the  recreant  scholarship  of  Cam 
bridge.  It  arraigned  and  condemned  all  scholarship  as  essen 
tially  timid,  selfish,  and  unheroic.  It  gave  a  list  of  the  leading 
reforms  of  the  last  forty  years,  in  none  of  which  Cambridge 
scholarship  had  taken  any  share, — Anti-Slavery,  Woman's 
Rights,  the  wrongs  of  Ireland,  reform  in  criminal  legislation,  — 
and  wound  up  the  catalogue  by  denouncing  as  disgusting  cant 
all  condemnation  of  Russian  Nihilism  and  its  methods.  He 
admitted,  that,  in  a  land  where  speech  and  the  press  are  free, 
recourse  to  assassination  is  criminal,  but  defended  '  dynamite 
and  the  dagger '  as  the  only  methods  of  reform  open  in 
Russia."  1 

There  had  been  two  previous  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
orations  at  Cambridge  which  were  epoch-making — 
Everett's,  in  1824,  when  he  apostrophized  Lafayette, 
who  was  on  the  platform  ;  and  Emerson's,  in  1837, 
which  turned  out  to  be  an  unlooked-for  excursion 
into  untrodden  domains  of  thought.  Phillips's  was 
the  highest  water-mark  in  style  and  expression  — 
"  the  ocean- wave  kissing  the  Alps." 

"  Well,"  was  his  comment,  '  I  suppose  they 
wanted  me  to  bring  myself." 

In  the  course  of  his  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address,  Mr. 
Phillips  made  a  reference  to  Civil  Service  Reform 
which  called  forth  criticism,  and  which  impelled  him 
to  a  further  statement  of  his  views.  Said  he  : 

"  For  George  William  Curtis,  the  leader  of  the  Civil  Service 
Reform,  I  have  the  most  sincere  respect.  His  place  as  states 
man,  scholar,  and  reformer  is  such,  and  so  universally  recog- 


1  Quoted  in  Austin's  "  Life,''  pp.  342,  343. 

2  Vide  the  full  text  of  the  address  in  the  Appendix. 


466  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

nized,  that  praise  from  me  would  be  almost  impertinence.  But 
a^large  proportion  of  the  party  in  New  York,  and  a  still  larger 
proportion  of  its  adherents  in  Massachusetts,  justify  all  I  have 
said  of  it  and  them. 

"  My  plan  of  Civil  Service  Reform  would  be  the  opposite  of 
what  they  propose.  I  should  seek  a  remedy  for  the  evils  they 
describe  in  a  wholly  different  direction  from  theirs, — in  fearless 
recourse  to  a  further  extension  of  the  democratic  principles  of 
our  institutions. 

"  Let  each  district  choose  its  own  postmaster  and  Custom- 
House  officials.  This  course  would  appeal  to  the  best  sense  and 
sober  second  thought  of  each  district.  Responsibility  would 
purify  and  elevate  the  masses,  while  Government  would  be 
relieved  from  that  mass  of  patronage  which  debauches  it. 

"  Their  plan  is  impracticable,  and  ought  to  be  ;  for  it  con 
travenes  the  fundamental  idea  of  our  institutions,  and  contem 
plates  a  coterie  of  men  kept  long  in  office, — largely  independent 
of  the  people, — a  miniature  aristocracy,  filled  with  a  dangerous 
esprit  de  corps.  The  Liberal  party  in  England  has  long  felt 
the  dead-weight  and  obstructive  influence  of  such  a  class.  The 
worst  element  at  Washington  in  1861,  the  one  that  hated  Lincoln 
most  bitterly,  and  gave  him  the  most  trouble, — the  one  that  re 
sisted  the  new  order  of  things  most  angrily  and  obstinately,  and 
put  the  safety  of  the  city  into  most  serious  peril,— was  the  body 
of  old  office-holders,  poisoned  with  length  of  official  life,  scoffing 
at  the  people  as  intrusive  intermeddlers  ;  men  in  whom  some 
thing  like  a  fixed  tenure  of  office  had  killed  all  sympathy  with 
the  democratic  tendency  of  our  system. 

"  Some  might  fear  that  our  Government  could  not  be  carried 
on  without  this  patronage. 

"  Hamilton  is  quoted  as  saying,  '  Purge  the  British  Govern 
ment  of  its  corruption,  and  give  to  its  popular  branch  equality 
of  representation,  and  it  would  become  an  impracticable  govern- 
ment.' 

"  The  British  Government  has  been  pretty  well  purged,  and 
its  popular  branch  comes  now  very  near  to  equality  of  repre 
sentation.  Yet,  spite  of  Hamilton's  prophecy,  the  machine  still 
works,  and  works  better  and  better  for  every  successive  measure 
of  such  purification  and  reform. 

"  So  our  Government,  relieved  of  the  weight  of  this  debasing 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  467 

patronage,   would  disappoint  the   sullen   forebodings  of  Tory 
misgiving,  and  rise  to  nobler  action."  * 

There  was  another  part  of  the  world,  tumultuous 
as  America  had  been  in  the  Anti-Slavery  days, 
where  the  orator  was  desired  to  "  bring  himself." 
In  grateful  recognition  of  his  services  to  Ireland, 
which  were  marked  through  the  Land  League  cam 
paign,  when  he  took  the  stump  and  uttered  words 
that  echoed  across  the  ocean  and  inspired  Erin, — 
Mr.  Phillips,  a  few  months  after  the  Cambridge 
triumph,  received  the  following  call  : 

OFFICE  OF  THE  "  IRISH  WORLD," 

NEW  YORK,  Oct.  31,  1881. 
"  Wendell  Phillips,  Boston. 

"  I  have  just  received  the  following  cable  from  Mr.  Egan, 
Land  League  Treasurer,  Paris  : 

"  '  Will  Wendell  Phillips  come  to  Ireland,  to  advocate  No 
Rent  during  the  suspension  of  Constitutional  liberties  ?  The 
League  will  pay  all  expenses.  Reply. 

1  PATRICK  EGAN.' 

"  I  beg  you,  Mr.  Phillips,  to  hearken  to  this  as  an  inspiration 
and  a  call  from  God  Himself.  You  are  the  one  man  in  America 
fitted  for  the  glorious  mission.  All  Ireland  will  rise  to  its  feet 
to  bless  and  cheer  you.  Never  did  Caesar  receive  such  an  ova 
tion.  Civilization  will  look  on  in  admiring  wonder.  The  good 
which  your  heroic  act  will  effect  is  incalculable  ;  and  your 
name,  consecrated  in  the  memory  of  a  grateful  people,  will  live 

while  time  endures. 

"  PATRICK  FORD."  2 

Appreciating  the  compliment,  but  unable  to  go, 
he  penned  a  declination  : 


1  "  Scholar  in  a  Republic."    Notes  :  Note  2. 

2  Vide  the  Irish  World,  November,  iSSi. 


468  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

"  BOSTON,  Nov.  2,  1881. 
Mr.  Patrick  Ford : 

"  SIR  :  I  receive  with  humility  the  summons  you  send  me, 
well  knowing,  that,  in  any  circumstances,  I  could  not  do  a  tenth 
part  of  what  your  partiality  makes  you  think  I  could. 

"  But,  in  this  case,  humanity,  constitutional  government,  and 
civilization  itself  claim  his  best  service  of  every  man. 

"  Ireland  to-day  leads  the  van  in  the  struggle  for  right,  jus- 
tice,  and  freedom. 

"  England  has  forfeited  her  right  to  rule,  if  she  ever  had  any, 
by  a  three  hundred  years'  exhibition  of  her  unfitness  and  in 
ability  to  do  so.  The  failure  is  confessed  by  all  her  statesmen 
of  both  parties  for  the  last  hundred  years. 

"  Discontent,  poverty,  famine,  and  death  are  her  accusers. 

"  Her  rulers  cannot  plead  ignorance.  Their  own  shameless 
confessions,  repeated  over  and  over  again,  admit  that  England's 
rule  has  been  unjust,  selfish,  and  cruel.  She  has  planned  that 
Ireland  should  starve,  hoping  she  would  then  be  too  weak  to 
resist. 

"  To-day,  while  her  Government  tramples  under  foot  every 
principle  in  English  history  that  makes  men  honor  it,  the  world 
waits  in  sure  and  glad  expectation  of  her  defeat,  confident  that 
her  overthrow  will  be  the  triumph  of  right,  justice,  and  civiliza 
tion. 

"  The  three  thousand  miles  of  ocean  that  separate  us  from 
her  shores,  enable  us  to  judge  her  course  as  dispassionately  as 
posterity  will  judge  it  a  hundred  years  hence  ;  and  we  see  the 
mad  blunders  of  her  Government  as  posterity  will  see  them. 

"  Let  Ireland  only  persevere,  and  her  victory  is  certain. 

"  With  unbroken  front,  let  her  assault  despotism  in  its  central 
point,  RENT.  Ireland  owes  none  to-day, — certainly  not  to  a 
class  whose  government  is  the  prison  and  the  bayonet. 

"  How  cheerfully  would  I  do  my  part  !    How  gladly  would  I 

share  in  the    honors   of   such  a   struggle  !    But  the  state  of   my 

health  obliges  me  to  give  up  public  speaking.      I  can  only  bid 

you  God-speed,  and  pray  for  your  speedy  and  complete  success. 

"  Yours  very  respectfully, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS." 

The    orator    was    the    most    modest   of   men.      A 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  469 

"  fuss"  with  himself  in  the  middle  of  it  he  specially 
disliked.  Learning  that  his  admirers  proposed  to 
celebrate  his  approaching-  seventieth  birthday,  he 
hastened  to  nip  the  project  in  the  bud.  Writing  on 
the  day  following  the  date  of  his  letter  to  Mr.  Ford, 
to  one  who  was  at  the  headquarters  of  the  move 
ment,  he  said  : 

"Please  understand  that  any  such  thing  would  be  very  dis 
agreeable  to  me.  I  particularly  request  that  you  have  no  hand 
in  it.  And  should  you  hear  of  any  one  intending  such  a  notice 
of  the  day,  please  let  him  understand  my  wishes."  1 

His  feeling  was  evidently  like  that  of  Washington, 
when,  as  he  stood  before  the  surrendering  army  of 
Corn w alii s,  some  of  the  Continental  troops  began  to 
cheer  as  that  officer  came  forward  to  yield  his  sword. 
The  noble  Virginian  turned  and  said  :  "  Let  pos 
terity  cheer  for  us."  2  Posterity  may  be  confidently 
relied  upon  to  do  it  in  both  cases. 


1  Letter  to  Mrs.  E,  F.  C.  (MS.).     2  Phillips's  "  Speeches,"  p.  68  s%. 


II. 

LENGTHENING   SHADOWS. 

THE  perennial  popularity  of  Wendell  Phillips  and 
his  surprising  mental  and  physical  strength  in  the 
evening  of  his  life,  may  be  measured  by  three  tests  : 
the  continuous  demand  for  his  services  ;  the  un- 
diminished  size  of  his  audiences  ;  and  his  activity. 
He  neither  looked  nor  acted  like  an  old  man.  That 
he  sometimes  wearied  of  his  peripatetic  routine  is 
true,  as  witness  these  lines  written  from  Albany, 
N.  Y.,  in  December,  1881  :  "I  work  hard,  and  battle 
with  snow-storms  and  drifts  as  I  used  to  do  ten  years 
ago,  and  hoped  I  shouldn't  now.  But  must  be  what 
must."  ' 

When  the  spring  of  1882  opened,  he  found  himself, 
to  his  unutterable  grief,  forced  to  leave  the  house  in 
which  he  had  resided  since  1841 — the  only  home  he 
had  known  since  he  left  his  mother's  roof,  the  scene 
of  his  whole  married  life,  a  spot  steeped  in  the  mem 
ories  and  associations  of  more  than  forty  years.  The 
city  had  long  projected  the  widening  of  the  adjacent 
Harrison  Avenue,  an  improvement  which  would  . 
necessitate  the  demolition  of  No.  26  Essex  Street. 
He  and  his  wife  (for  Mrs.  Phillips  was  as  reluctant 
to  move  as  her  husband)  had  postponed  the  evil  day 
by  influence  with  the  authorities.  Both  desired  to 
die  where  they  had  lived.  He  predicted  his  own 

1  Letter  to  Mrs.  E.  F.  C.  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

demise  in  the  near  future,  and  announced  that  he 
would  not  reach  the  age  of  seventy-four.1  Never 
theless,  in  1882  the  city  decided  that  the  contem 
plated  change  could  no  longer  wait. 

With  a  heavy  heart,  the  apostle  of  progress,  now 
made,  by  the  irony  of  fate,  himself  a  victim  of  im 
provement,  set  out  to  find  a  new  house.  In  the 
neighborhood  he  discovered  a  house  much  like  the 
old  one.  It  was  in  Common  Street, — No.  37. 
Hither  he  moved.  No  easy  task.  For  there  in 
Essex  Street  was  the  accumulation  of  a  lifetime. 
With  many  a  sigh,  the  exiled  couple  collected,  as 
sorted,  and  carted  away  their  lares  et  penates.  Their 
effort  was  to  reproduce  the  Essex  Street  interior 
here  in  Common  Street.  The  wife's  apartment  bore 
a  singularly  close  resemblance  to  the  former  cham 
ber.  To  make  it  more  homelike,  the  thoughtful 
husband  transferred  thither  the  old  mantel  and  open 
grate,  and  the  furniture  was  similarly  arranged. 
But  they  never  felt  quite  at  home  again.  Their 
friends  noted  their  homesickness  with  sorrow.  It 
was  widely  thought  that  Boston  might  have  let  one 
more  of  her  streets  stay  crooked  and  narrow  a  little 
longer  as  a  graceful  compliment  to  her  most  illus 
trious  son.  But  the  Puritan  capital  did  not  awake 
until  after  he  was  gone  to  recognize  the  value  of  the 
Puritan  orator. 

Mr.  Phillips  walked  one  day  with  a  friend  to  the 
familiar  corner  and  stood  looking  at  the  spot — the 
old  house  gone.  M  It  was  hard,"  said  he,  "  that  the 
city  would  not  let  me  stay  till  the  end  in  my  home 
for  forty  years  !"  Then,  after  a  pause,  he  turned 


1  So  he  told  ex-Mayor  Samuel  G.  Green  and  others. 


4/2  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

with  the  remark  :   4<  It  is  no  matter.     I   am  almost 
through  with  it  all."  ' 

In  a  letter  addressed  to  his  friend  Aaron  M.  Pow 
ell,  of  New  York  City,  and  dated  August  i6th,  1882, 
he  writes  : 

"  You  ought  to  know  what  I  did  with  my  Anti-Slavery  library. 
Did  I  tell  you  ?  I  sent  a  complete  file  of  the  Standard,  from 
184010  1872,  to  Mr.  Spofford,  for  the  Congressional  Library; 
also  three  volumes  of  the  Liberator  to  fill  up  his  gaps,  which 
are  now  not  many.  I  sent  the  Astor  Library  a  complete  file  of 
the  Liberator.  It  had  all  the  Standards.  I  gave  the  Boston 
Public  Library  a  complete  file  of  the  Standard  (it  had  almost 
perfect  Liberator)  ;  and  all  my  reports,  pamphlets,  and  surplus 
numbers  of  newspapers,  bound  and  unbound,  Emancipators 
and  Heralds  of  Freedom,  they  agreeing  to  distribute.  So  you 
see  I  have  acted  as  my  own  executor,  to  get  rid  of  twenty-five 
hundred  volumes." 

The  fall  and  winter  of  1882-83  were  devoted  by 
Mr.  Phillips  to  lecturing,  as  usual — his  last  Lyceum 
round.  He  prepared  and  delivered  in  Boston,  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  and  elsewhere,  a  new  lecture, 
'  The  Yardstick,"  in  which  he  argued  the  question 
of  Capital  and  Labor,  arraigned  the  existing  parties 
as  representing  dead  issues,  and  called  Christians 
and  patriots  to  organize  on  a  platform  of  to-day. 

At  the  end  of  the  season  he  went  with  Mrs.  Phil 
lips  to  Belmont,  near  by,  for  the  summer.  From 
this  village  he  wrote,  on  August  i/th,  1883,  a  de 
scription  of  his  environment  : 

"  Nothing  is  changed  here.  We  plod  on  as  usual.  ...  I  go 
in  town  twice  a  week  and  sometimes  thrice  ;  reading  and  dozing 
the  other  days.  Boston  is  crowded  notwithstanding  our  ab- 


1  Recollections  of  Mrs.  E.  F.  C.  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  473 

sence  !    I  don't  think  I  could  live  all  the  time  in  the  country. 
It  would  make  me  a  Rip  Van  Winkle  in  ten  months." 

On  the  last  day  of  August  he  informs  the  same 
friend  of  his  sudden  return  to  town  : 

"  We  are  at  37  Common  Street.  Ann  was  so  uncomfortable 
that  we  were  obliged  to  run  in  ;  and  here  we  are— dust,  noise, 
heat  ! 

"  Ann  says,  and  I  repeat  with  emphasis,  don't  bring  back  an 
owl.  Cruel,  as  he  must  be  caged,  and  for  an  Abolitionist  it  is  a 
gross  violation  of  principle. 

"  Then,  only  silly  women,  with  no  brains,  have  animal  pets 
like  that.  There's  enough  to  do  and  care  for  in  this  world  with 
out  saddling  ourselves  with  such  fooleries.  Forgive  plain 
speech.  I  only  care  for  you,  and  am 

"Affectionately, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS."  2 

Toward  the  end  of  1883,  the  surviving  founders 
of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  together  with 
later  members,  arranged  to  hold  a  meeting  in  Phila 
delphia  to  commemorate  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of 
its  organization.  The  Agitator  was  urgently  in 
vited.  Circumstances  were  such  that  he  could  not 
leave  home,  and  he  sent  a  letter  to  Mr.  Robert  Pur 
vis,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Arrangements. 
It  is  important  as  outlining  his  position  in  these  late 
moments  of  his  life,  and  containing  his  advice  (final, 
as  it  proved)  to  his  ancient  co-workers  : 

"  BOSTON,  December  3,  1883. 

"  MY  DEAR  PURVIS  :  I  am  very  sorry  that  I  cannot  be  with 
you  to-morrow. 

"  You  know  I  was  not  one  of  the  founders  of  the  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society.  But  I  should  be  glad  to  meet  the  few  who 
survive  of  that  devoted  band,  congratulate  them  on  the  marvel- 


Written  to  Mrs.  E.  F.  C.  (MS.).  2  Ib. 


474  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

lous  work  they  began,  and  join  them  in  rejoicing  that  so  many 
of  their  comrades  lived  to  see  the  completion  and  triumph  of 
their  movement.  I  think  that  agitation  did  more  to  reveal  the 
workings  of  republican  institutions,  and  awaken  men  to  their 
dangers  and  duties  as  citizens,  than  any  previous  event  in  our 
history. 

"  As  the  Latin  proverb  says  in  Carlyle's  translation,  'Every 
road  leads  to  the  end  of  the  world,'  so  this  movement  touched 
in  its  progress  all  the  great  questions  of  the  age, — right  of  private 
judgment,  place  of  the  Bible,  questions  of  race  and  sex,  the 
tenure  of  property,  the  relations  of  citizens  and  law,  and  of 
capitalist  to  labor,  with  many  others.  With  all  these  we  were 
brought  face  to  face,  and  many  of  them  we  were  forced  to  dis 
cuss  at  full  length.  Now  that  the  first  great  purpose  of  the 
movement  is  accomplished,  it  seems  wasteful  that  the  skill  and 
experience  got  from  thirty  years  of  such  labor  and  agitation 
should  be  lost. 

"  The  freedmen  still  need  the  protection  of  a  vigilant  public 
opinion,  and  will  need  it  for  the  rest  of  this  generation.  Labor 
and  its  kindred  question,  Finance,  claim  our  aid  in  the  name  of 
that  same  humanity  and  justice  which  originally  stirred  us.  We 
always  proclaimed  that  it  was  not  only  the  protection  of  the 
negro  we  aimed  at,  but  that  we  sought  to  establish  a  principle, 
the  rights  of  human  nature. 

"  In  that  view  it  seems  to  me  we  are  narrow  and  wanting  if 
we  do  not  contribute  the  energy  and  skill  which  so  many  years 
have  aroused  and  created,  to  those  questions  which  flow  so 
naturally  out  of  ours  and  belong  to  the  same  great  brotherhood. 
Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  old  Abolitionist  stopped  with  the 
negro,  and  was  never  able  to  see  that  the  same  principles  he  had 
advocated  at  such  cost  claimed  his  utmost  effort  to  protect  .all 
labor,  white  and  black,  and  to  further  the  discussion  of  every 
claim  of  down-trodden  humanity.  Let  it  be  seen  that  our  ex 
perience  made  us  not  merely  Abolitionists,  but  philanthropists. 

"  Yours  faithfully, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS."  ' 

Mr.  R.  Purvis. 


1   I'ide  Commemorative  Pamphlet  of  the  Proceedings.    Philadelphia, 
1884. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  4/5 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  letter  to  Philadelphia 
bears  the  date  of  December  3d.  On  the  26th  of  the 
month,  the  orator  went  to  the  "  Old  South"  Church, 
in  Boston,  to  take  part  in  the  exercises  at  the  unveil 
ing-  of  Anne  Whitney's  statue  of  Harriet  Martineau — 
his  personal  friend.  Mrs.  Mary  A.  Livermore  pre 
sided.  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Jr.,  spoke,  and 
was  followed  by  Mr.  Phillips.  As  the  well-known 
and  honored  face  and  form  appeared,  the  assembly, 
largely  composed  of  ladies,  broke  into  hearty  ap 
plause  : 

"  Webster  once  said,  that '  In  war  there  are  no  Sundays.'  So 
in  moral  questions  there  are  no  nations.  Intellect  and  morals 
transcend  all  limits.  When  a  moral  issue  is  stirred,  then  there 
is  no  American,  no  German.  We  are  all  men  and  women. 
And  that  is  the  reason  why  I  think  we  should  indorse  this 
memorial  of  the  city  to  Harriet  Martineau,  because  her  service 
transcends  nationality.  There  would  be  nothing  inappropriate 
it  we  raised  a  memorial  to  Wickliffe,  or  if  the  common-school 
system  of  New  England  raised  a  memorial  to  Calvin  ;  for  they 
rendered  the  greatest  of  services.  So  with  Harriet  Martineau, 
we  might  fairly  render  a  monument  to  the  grandest  woman  of 
her  day,  we,  the  heirs  of  the  same  language,  and  one  in  the 
same  civilization  ;  for  steam  and  the  telegraph  have  made,  not 
many  nations,  but  one,  in  perfect  unity  in  the  world  of  thought, 
purpose,  and  intellect.  Arid  there  could  be  no  fault  found  with 
thus  recognizing  this  counsellor  of  princes,  and  adviser  of  min 
isters,  this  woman  who  has  done  more  for  beneficial  changes  in 
the  English  world  than  any  ten  men  in  Great  Britain.  In  an 
epoch  fertile  of  great  genius  among  women,  it  may  be  said  of 
Miss  Martineau,  that  she  was  the  peer  of  the  noblest,  and  that 
her  influence  on  the  progress  of  the  age  was  more  than  equal  to 
that  of  all  the  others  combined.  She  has  the  great  honor  of 
having  always  seen  the  truth  one  generation  ahead  ;  and  so  con 
sistent  was  she,  so  keen  of  insight,  that  there  is  no  need  of  going 
back  to  explain  by  circumstances  in  order  to  justify  the  actions 
of  her  life.  This  can  hardly  be  said  of  any  great  Englishman, 


476  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

even  by  his  admirers.  We  place  the  statue  here  in  Boston 
because  she  has  made  herself  an  American.  Sne  passed  through 
this  city  on  the  very  day  when  Mr.  Garrison  was  mobbed  or: 
State  Street.  Her  friends  feared  to  tell  her  the  truth  when  she 
asked  what  the  immense  crowd  were  doing,  and  dissimulatec 
by  saying  it  was  post-time,  and  the  throng  were  hurrying  to  the 
office  for  mail.  Afterward,  when  she  heard  of  the  mob  and  its 
action,  horror-struck,  she  turned  to  her  host,  the  honored  presi 
dent  of  a  neighboring  university  ;  and  even  he  was  American 
enough  to  assure  her  that  no  harm  could  come  from  such  a 
scene  ;  said  it  was  not  a  mob,  it  was  a  collection  or  gathering. 
Harriet  Martineau  had  been  welcomed  all  over  America.  She 
had  been  received  by  Calhoun  in  South  Carolina,  the  Chief  Jus 
tice  of  Virginia  had  welcomed  her  at  his  mansion.  But  she  wrent 
through  the  South  concealing  no  repugnance,  making  her  obei 
sance  to  no  idol.  She  never  bowed  anywhere  to  the  aristocracy 
of  accident.  This  brave  head  and  heart  held  its  own  through 
out  that  journey.  She  came  here  to  gain  a  personal  knowledge 
of  the  Abolitionists,  and  her  first  experience  was  with  the  mob 
on  State  Street.  Of  course  she  expressed  all  the  horror  which  a 
gallant  soul  would  feel.  You  may  speak  of  the  magnanimity 
and  courage  of  Harriet  Martineau  ;  but  the  first  element  is  her 
rectitude  of  purpose,  by  which  was  born  that  true  instinct  which 
saw  through  all  things.  We  have  had  Englishmen  come  here, 
who  were  clear-sighted  enough  to  say  true  words  after  they  re 
turned  home  ;  but  this  was  a  woman  who  was  welcomed  by 
crowds  in  the  South,  and  about  whom  a  glamor  was  thrown  to 
prevent  her  from  seeing  the  truth.  It  is  easy  to  be  independent 
when  all  behind  you  agree  with  you,  but  the  difficulty  comes 
when  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  of  your  friends  think  you 
wrong.  Then  it  is  the  brave  soul  who  stands  up,  one  among  a 
thousand,  but  remembering  that  one  with  God  makes  a  majority. 
This  was  Harriet  Martineau.  She  was  surrounded  by  doctors 
of  divinity,  who  were  hedging  her  about  with  their  theories  and 
beliefs.  What  do  some  of  these  later  travellers  who  have  been 
here  know  of  the  real  New  England,  when  they  have  been  seated 
in  sealed  houses,  and  gorged  with  the  glittering  banquets  of 
social  societies  ?  Harriet  Martineau,  instead  of  lingering  in  the 
camps  of  the  Philistines,  could,  with  courage,  declare.  '  I'll  go 
among  the  Abolitionists,  and  see  for  myself.1  Shortly  after  the 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  477 

time  of  the  State  Street  mob,  she  came  to  Cambridge  ;  and  her 
hosts  there  begged  her  not  to  put  her  hand  into  their  quarrels. 
The  Abolitionists  held  a  meeting  there.  The  only  hall  of  that 
day  open  to  them  was  owned  by  infidels.  Think  of  that,  ye 
friends  of  Christianity.  And  yet  the  infidelity  of  that  day  is  the 
Christianity  of  to-day.  To  this  meeting  in  this  hall  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  went  to  express  her  entire  sympathy  with  the  occasion. 
As  a  result  of  her  words  and  deeds,  such  was  the  lawlessness 
of  that  time,  she  had  to  turn  back  from  her  intended  journey  to 
the  West,  and  was  assured  that  she  would  be  lynched  if  she 
dared  set  foot  in  Ohio.  She  gave  up  her  journey,  but  not  her 
principles. 

"  Harriet  Martineau  saw,  not  merely  the  question  of  free 
speech,  but  the  grandeur  of  the  great  'movement  just  then 
opened.  This  great  movement  is  second  only  to  the  Reforma 
tion  in  the  history  of  the  English  and  the  German  race.  In  time 
to  come,  when  the  grandeur  of  this  movement  is  set  forth  in 
history,  you  will  see  its  proportions  and  beneficial  results.  Har 
riet  Martineau  saw  it  fifty  years  ago,  and  after  that  she  was  one 
of  us..  She  was  always  the  friend  of  the  poor.  Prisoner,  slave, 
wage-serf,  worn-out  by  toil  in  the  mill,  no  matter  who  the  suf 
ferer,  there  was  always  one  person  who  could  influence  Tory 
and  Liberal  to  listen.  Americans,  I  ask  you  to  welcome  to 
Boston  this  statue  of  Harriet  Martineau,  because  she  was  the 
greatest  American  Abolitionist.  We  want  our  children  to  see 
the  woman  who  came  to  observe,  and  remained  to  work,  and, 
having  once  put  her  hand  to  the  plough,  persevered  un-il  she 
was  allowed  to  live  where  the  paean  of  the  emancipated  four 
millions  went  up  to  heaven,  showing  the  attainment  of  her  great 
desire."  1 

On  this  occasion  it  was  universally  remarked  that 
Mr.  Phillips  seemed  well  and  strong.  The  graceful 
dignity  of  posture,  the  finished  elocution,  the  silvery 
music  of  the  voice,  the  sparing  yet  significant  ges 
ture,  the  keen  eye,  the  noble  expression  of  counte 
nance —  not  one  of  the  familiar  features  of  his  oratory 


Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  December  4th,  1883. 


478  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

was  missed.     And  the  audience  retired  in  the  hope 
and  with  the  expectation  of  hearing  him  for  years 
to  come.      No  one  imagined  it  to  be  the  last  public 
appearance  of  Wendell  Phillips. 
It  was. 


III. 

SUNDOWN. 

ON  New  Year's  morning  of  1884,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Sheldon  Jackson,  who  was  interested  in  the  estab 
lishment  of  education  in  Alaska,  called  at  the  house 
in  Common  Street  to  solicit  the  aid  of  the  people's 
Tribune  in  bringing  his  project  to  the  attention  of 
Congress.  Mr.  Phillips  expressed  his  sympathy, 
and  at  once  sat  down  and  wrote  as  follows  to  the 
Hon.  Patrick  Collins,  a  representative  from  Massa 
chusetts  at  Washington— the  last  words  of  public 
concern  traced  by  his  pen  : 

"  MY  DEAR  SIR  :  Is  it  wholly  in  order  to  write  a  Congress 
man  a  Happy  New  Year  ? 

"  Well,  if  it  is  not,  excuse  my  ignorance  of  parliamentary 
customs.  • 

'*  I  want  to  ask  a  favor.  There  will  come  before  Congress 
some  measure  toward  the  creation  of  a  territorial  government  in 
Alaska,  which,  you  will  hardly  believe,  is  without  government, 
court,  or  schools,  though  we  have  possessed  it  since  1867,  and 
we  found  all  those  there  when  Russia  surrendered  it  to  us  ;  and 
though  Alaska  yields  some  three  hundred  thousand  dollars 
annually — a  fifth  part  of  which  sum  would  pay  all  the  cost  of 
schools,  court,  governor,  etc. 

"  The  Rev.  Dr.  Sheldon  Jackson,  who  is  a  missionary  there, 
will  introduce  himself  to  you  ;  and  I  ask  for  him  and  his  cause 
your  favorable  consideration. 

"  Yours  cordially, 

"  WENDELL  PHILLIPS."  ' 

1  Vide  Boston  Herald.  Phillips  memorial  edition,  February  4th, 
1884. 


480  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

The  serious  illness  of  Mrs.  Phillips  imprisoned  her 
husband  through  January.  He.  hardly  left  her  room. 
On  the  26th  inst.  Mr.  Phillips  was  suddenly  seized 
with  agony  of  the  chest.  Ominous  symptom  !  His 
father  and  three  of  his  brothers  had  died  after  similar 
warning.  The  family  physician,  Dr.  David  Thayer, 
was  instantly  summoned.  He  made  a  thorough  ex 
amination  and  confirmed  the  worst  fears  of  the  house 
hold.  It  was  a  case  of  angina  pectoris.  The  rem 
edies  administered  brought  temporary  relief.  Mr. 
Phillips  lay  on  a  lounge,  self-possessed  and  smiling. 
This  occurred  in  the  forenoon. 

In  the  afternoon  an  intimate  friend  called  and  con 
versed  with  him  at  length.  "  I  found  him,"  she 
says,  ' '  as  serene  as  ever  he  was,  although  Dr. 
Thayer  had  just  informed  him  that  the  morning's 
pain  was  a  death-warrant.  I  asked  him  about  his 
faith.  He  said  it  was  absolute.  We  then  spoke  of 
Christ,  in  whom  he  believed  as  divine.  Quoting  the 
words  which  Riehm,  in  his  biography  of  Hupfeld, 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  that  eminent  Semitic  scholar 
and  critic,  he  said  :  '  I  find  the  whole  history  of  hu 
manity  before  Him  and  after  Him  points  to  Him,  and 
finds  in  Him  its  centre  and  its  solution.  His  whole 
conduct,  His  deeds,  His  words  have  a  supernatural 
character,  being  altogether  inexplicable  from  human 
relations  and  human  means.  I  feel  that  here  there  is 
something  more  than  man. '  When  I  raised  objections, 
he  told  me,  in  substance,  that  nothing  but  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  had  enabled  him  to  suffer  and  endure  what' he 
had.  '  Then  you  have  no  doubt  about  a  future  life  ?  ' 
I  asked.  His  answer  was  in  these  words  :  '  I  am  as 
sure  of  it  as  I  am  that  there  will  be  a  to-morrow.'  ' 

1  Recollections  of  Mrs.  E.  F.  Crosby  (MS.). 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  481 

On  Sunday  the  pain  returned.  He  suffered  ter 
ribly.  The  physician  reappeared,  and  the  ailment 
seemed  to  yield  to  his  treatment.  The  patient 
brightened  on  Monday.  On  Tuesday  he  was  quite 
himself.  All  felt  hopeful.  When  Wednesday 
dawned  there  was  a  relapse.  Through  that  day  and 
the  next  he  lay  in  agony.  The  doctor,  surrounded 
by  medical  assistants,  remained  in  constant  attend 
ance.  On  Friday  relief  came,  but  only  for  a  space. 
The  paroxysms  returned  with  redoubled  terror. 
Mr.  Phillips  tainted,  and  was  revived  with  difficulty. 
As  the  pain  continued  anaesthetics  were  adminis 
tered.  On  Saturday  he  was  again  relieved.  When 
Dr.  Thayer,  at  his  request,  told  him  the  probable 
result,  he  smiled  and  said  : 

'  I  have  no  fear  of  death.  I  have  long  foreseen  it. 
My  only  regret  is  for  poor  Ann.  I  had  hoped  to 
close  her  eyes  before  mine  were  shut." 

He  lay  quietly  through  the  day  in  the  full  posses 
sion  of  his  faculties.  His  chief  anxiety  was  for 
"  Ann" — his  care  for  half  a  century  ;  for  her,  and 
lest  he  should  give  unnecessary  trouble  to  the  will 
ing  watchers  at  the  bedside.  At  fifteen  minutes  past 
six  o'clock  on  Saturday  evening,  February  2d,  he 
sighed  gently,  closed  his  eyes,  and  "passed  away 
as  calmly  as  though  going  to  sleep."  ' 

Serene,  self-forgetful,  thoughtful  of  others,  and 
most  of  all  with  her  in  his  mind  and  heart,  he 
died  as  he  had  lived — WENDELL  PHILLIPS  to  the 
end.2 


1  The  author  had  these  particulars  from  the  lips  of  Dr.  Thayer. 

2  Mrs.    Phillips  survived  her  husband  a  little  more  than  a  year. 
She  was  tenderly  cared  for  by  relatives  and  friends,  and  died,  April 


482  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

23d,  1885,  in  the  Common  Street  home.  "  The  few  lifelong  friends 
who  were  privileged  to  look  upon  her  face  the  following  Easter  morn 
ing,  were  startled  by  its  expression.  She  lay  as  if  asleep,  with  all  the 
purity  and  guilelessness  of  her  youthful  face  ripened  into  maturity. 
It  seemed  transfiguration."  "  Memorial  of  Ann  Phillips,"  by  Mrs. 
Anna  G.  Alford,  p.  20. 


IV. 

"  AT   EVENTIME   IT  SHALL  BE  LIGHT." 

THE  announcement  of  Mr.  Phillips's  death  was 
followed  by  a  wonderful  outburst  of  feeling,  in  which 
surprise,  grief,  admiration,  love,  were  strongly 
mingled.  Nor  was  there  heard  in  the  chorus  of  re 
mark  one  discordant  note.  As  the  death-tidings 
sped  from  ocean  to  ocean,  cities,  towns,  hamlets 
uprose  and  uncovered  ;  while,  with  choked  utter 
ance,  negroes  with  whom  he  had  been  bound,  women 
whom  he  loved  with  the  purity  of  an  anchorite, 
Irishmen  whose  aspirations  for  the  green  flag  over 
Castle  Green  he  shared  and  uttered,  Labor  Reformers 
whose  fellow  he  had  made  himself,  the  poor  and 
miserable  now  doubly  impoverished  and  unhappy, 
— whispered  brokenly  the  name  they  loved. 

As  the  Amphion-lips  were  hushed  yonder  in  the 
plain  house  on  Common  Street,  the  music  of  his  life 
was  repeated  by  the  pulpit,  platform,  and  press, — 
music,  solemn  as  a  psalm,  inspiring  as  a  battle  hymn. 
The  South  joined  the  North,  saw  the  real  friend  in 
the  seeming  foe;  and  in  New  Orleans,  Charleston, 
and  Richmond  tender  words  wrere  spoken  as  the 
bulletins  announced,  "  Wendell  Phillips  is  dead." 

The  shock  in  Boston,  and  the  sorrow,  were  pecul 
iarly  marked.  On  Sunday,  February  3d,  the  be 
reavement  was  the  topic  of  subdued  conversation  in 
every  home,  and  the  text  in  all  the  churches.  On 


484  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Monday,  the  Legislature,  then  in  session,  appointed 
a  committee  to  formulate  the  feeling  of  the  common 
wealth  ;  and  the  Common  Council  held  a  special 
meeting  to  mature  appropriate  action  on  the  part  of 
Boston.  At  the  same  time  the  Labor  Reformers 
were  in  session  at  the  Tremont  House,  arranging 

o       t> 

for  a  public  memorial  meeting  on  Tuesday  night  in 
Faneuil  Hall  ;  while  opposite  in  Tremont  Temple 
Joseph  Cook  in  his  Monday  lecture  was  discoursing 
of  the  dead  orator,  and  declaring  that  "  fifty  years 
hence  it  would  not  be  asked,  '  What  did  Boston 
think  of  Wendell  Phillips  ? '  but  '•  What  did  Wendell 
Phillips  think  of  Boston  ?  '  " 

Meantime,  telegrams,  letters  of  condolence,  per 
sonal  inquiries  came  pouring  in  from  eve^whither, 
giving  evidence  that  this  loss  was  not  local  but 
national  ;  and  that,  as  some  one  said,  the  apostle  of 
humanity  deserved  a  monument  in  Dublin,  in  St. 
Petersburg,  and  in  Charleston,  as  well  as  in  Boston. 

The  Legislature  adopted  a  report  which  was  at 
once  discriminating  and  eulogistic,  saying  : 

"  The  Orator's  fellow-citizens  have  always  respected  him  for 
every  domestic  virtue  and  for  a  grandly  stoical  simplicity  of  life. 
Full  of  the  generous  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  seeking  no  public 
honor,  devoting  his  life  and  great  powers  to  the  cause  of  the 
oppressed  even  to  his  own  heavy  loss,  standing  firm  against  any 
and  every  injustice  like  the  hills  of  his  native  State,  volcanic  in 
his  outbursts  of  wrath  against  oppression,  Wendell  Phillips 
stands  as  the  strongest  type  of  the  fearless,  uncompromising 
reformer."  1 

The  City  Council  spoke  in  a  similar  strain,  and 
provided  for  the  delivery  of  a  eulogy  under  the 


1  Vide  Report  of  Committee  of  Massachusetts  Legislature,  accepted 
February  6th,  i88a. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  485 

auspices  of  Boston — which  was  pronounced  a  little 
later  by  the  one  man  in  America  best  fitted  for  the 
task  by  kindred  culture,  sympathetic  feeling,  and 
graceful  eloquence,  Mr.  George  William  Curtis, 
who  said  : 

"  As  we  recall  the  story  of  that  life,  the  spectacle  of  to-day  is 
one  of  the  most  significant  in  our  history.  This  memorial  rite 
is  not  a  tribute  to  official  service,  to  literary  genius,  to  scientific 
distinction  ;  it  is  a  homage  to  personal  character.  It  is  the  sol 
emn  public  declaration  that  a  life  of  transcendent  purity  of  pur 
pose,  blended  with  commanding  powers,  devoted  with  absolute 
unselfishness,  and  with  amazing  results,  to  the  welfare  of  the 
country  and  of  humanity,  is,  in  the  American  Republic,  an  ex 
ample  so  inspiring,  a  patriotism  so  lofty,  and  a  public  service  so 
beneficent,  that,  in  contemplating  them,  discordant  opinions, 
differing  judgments,  and  the  sharp  sting  of  controversial  speech, 
vanish  like  frost  in  a  flood  of  sunshine."  : 

The  gathering  in  Faneuil  Hall  on  Tuesday  even 
ing  was  strikingly  and  suggestively  comprehensive. 
Labor,  Woman  Suffrage,  Irish  Nationality,  Tem 
perance,  Anti- Slavery,— all  were  represented  by 
prominent  exponents,  and  each  in  turn  twined  a 
wreath  of  laurel  on  the  brow  of  him  who  had  been 
the  consummate  embodiment  of  all. 

The  next  day,  Wednesday,  at  eleven  o'clock,  the 
funeral  took  place.  The  dear  dust  was  borne  to  the 
adjacent  Hollis  Street  church,2  where,  in  the  pres 
ence  of  a  vast  and  cosmopolitan  congregation,  ser 
vices  were  held  of  touching  simplicity, — a  few  verses 
of  Scripture  and  a  brief  prayer  by  the  Rev.  Samuel 


1  Curtis's  "  Eulogy,"  pp.  4,  5. 

2  The  pall-bearers  were  Judge  S.   E.  Sewall,   Dr,  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  Theodore  D.  Weld,  John  M.  Forbes,  Wendell   Phillips  Gar 
rison,   Lewis   Hayden  (colored),    Charles    K.    Whipple,    William    I. 
Bowditch,  Richard  Hallowell,  and  Edward  M.  Davis. 


486  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Longfellow  (the  brother  and  biographer  of  the  poet), 
and  a  faltering  word  by  the  Rev.  Samuel  May,1  both 
comrades  of  Mr.  Phillips. 

From  the  church,  in  compliance  with  a  request  so 
general  that  it  assumed  the  tone  of  a  command,  the 
body  was  borne  by  a  guard  of  honor  composed  of 
two  colored  companies  of  the  State  Guard  and  pre 
ceded  by  muffled  drums  through  crowded  streets, 
the  windows  filled,  the  sidewalks  lined  with  sym 
pathetic  spectators,  to  Faneuil  Hall,  where  he  had 
made  history, — a  final,  and  on  his  part  who  lay  there 
in  the  coffin  an  unresponsive  visit. 

Here,  from  one  o'clock  until  four,  the  body  lay  in 
state.  Beautiful  floral  tributes  abounded.  But  the 
hall  was  otherwise  unadorned.  The  scene  out  on 
the  streets  and  along  the  approaches  to  the  entrance 
was  unprecedented.  Thousands  and  thousand*  of 
people  struggled  for  a  place  in  the  line,  eager  for  a 
last  look  at  the  noble  countenance.  These  thousands 
were  of  both  sexes,  all  colors,  every  race,  and  every 
social  grade  :  here,  an  old  colored  woman,  the  tears 
streaming  down  her  cheeks,  and  crying  as  she  passed 
the  casket,  "  He  was  de  bes'  fren'  we  ever  had  !" 
there,  an  Irishman,  the  brogue  and  the  wit  silenced 
now  beside  the  still  tongue  which  had  pleaded  so 
often  for  Erin  ;  here,  a  lad  whom  he  had  befriended 
and  secured  employment  lor  ;  there,  a  gray-haired 
merchant  who  "  knew  Wendell  at  school  ;"  here,  a 
group  of  boys  and  girls  who  had  a  filial  pride  in  this 
father  of  the  commonwealth  ;  there, — yes,  Frederick 
Douglass,  who  in  passing  exclaimed,  "  I  loved  him, 


1  Mr.  May  conducted  the  services  at  the  funeral  of  Mrs.  Phillips, 
also,  the  next  year. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  487 

and  I  wanted  to  see  this  throng,  to  feel  the  grip  he 
had  on  the  community  ;  'tis  Avonderful  !"  So  it 
went  on  for  hours,  the  crowd  increasing  instead  of 
diminishing,  becoming  more  instead  of  less  diversi 
fied  ;  all  here  to  pay  an  honest  tribute  to  him  of 
whom,  as  of  the  Master,  it  might  be  said,  "  the  com 
mon  people  heard  him  gladly." 

At  last  twilight  began  to  shake  down  her  curtains. 
In  the  face  of  the  struggling  thousands  the  doors 
were  clanged  to  ;  the  casket  was  removed  ;  the  line 
of  march  was  retaken  through  massive  lines  of  un 
covered  lookers-on  ;  the  Old  Granery  Burial 
Ground,  on  Boston  Common,  was  reached  ;  here, 
beside  his  father  and  mother  in  the  family  vault,  all 
that  was  mortal  of  Wendell  Phillips  was  laid  away  j1 
and  the  multitude  dispersed. 

Such  was  Boston's  homage  to  her  uncrowned  king 
of  thought  and  speech. 

All  this  was  thrown  at  the  time  by  Nora  Perry, 
who  knew  and  loved  Mr.  Phillips,  into  thrilling 
verse  : 

Along  the  streets  one  day  with  that  swift  tread 
He  walked  a  living  king — then  "  He  is  dead" 
The  whisper  flew  from  lip  to  lip,  while  still 
Sounding  within  our  ears,  the  echoing  thrill 
Of  his  magician's  voice  we  seemed  to  hear 
In  notes  of  melody  ring  near  and  clear. 


1  As  early  as  1877  Mr.  Phillips  had  planned  to  be  buried  in  the 
beautiful  suburb  of  Milton,  where  he  and  his  wife  often  passed  their 
summers.  Here  he  had  purchased  a  lot ;  and  hither  on  the  death  of 
Mrs.  Phillips  both  were  borne  and  finally  interred.  A  plain  slab  now 
marks  the  spot,  on  which  is  chiselled,  "  Ann  and  Wendell  Phillips." 
In  referring  to  this,  Theodore  D.  Weld  said  to  the  writer  :  "  Wendell 
did  not  care  to  lie  amid  the  beat  of  hurrying  feet,  but  wished  to  be 
out  where  the  birds  sing  and  the  flowers  bloom." 


488  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

So  near,  so  clear,  men  cried,  "  It  cannot  be  ! 

It  was  but  yesterday  he  spoke  to  me  ; 

But  yesterday  we  saw  him  move  along, 

His  head  above  the  crowd,  swift-paced  and  strong, 

But  yesterday  his  plan  and  purpose  sped  ; 

It  cannot  be  to  day  that  he  is  dead." 

A  moment  thus,  half  dazed,  men  met  and  spoke, 

When  first  the  sudden  news  upon  them  broke  ; 

A  moment  more,  with  sad  acceptance  turned 

To  face  the  bitter  truth  that  they  had  spurned. 

Friends  said  through  tears,  "  How  empty  seems  the  town  !" 

And  warring  critics  laid  their  weapons  down. 

How  at  the  last  this  great  heart  conquered  all 

We  know  who  watched  above  his  sacred  pall — 

One  day  a  living  king  he  faced  a  crowd 

Of  critic  foes  ;  over  the  dead  king  bowed 

A  throng  of  friends  who  yesterday  were  those 

Who  thought  themselves,  and  whom  the  world  thought,  foes, 


V. 

THE    ORATOR. 

THE  great  Agitator  has  now  been  long  enough 
withdrawn  from  the  arena  which  was  the  scene  of 
his  tumultuous  career  to  make  an  estimate  of  his 
oratory  both  interesting  and  important.  Interest 
ing  ;  because  his  unique  reputation  provokes  inquiry. 
Important  ;  because  no  fame,  save  that  of  zprima 
donna,  is  so  intoxicating,  while  none,  with  the  same 
exception,  is  so  ephemeral  as  that  of  an  orator. 
When  the  voice  is  hushed  reputation  becomes  a 
memory.  Like  a  bird  on  the  wing,  it  must  be 
bagged,  if  at  all,  as  it  flies  and  before  it  vanishes. 
The  living  presence  embarrasses  criticism  ;  which, 
however,  is  free  when  the  man  is  gone,  while  many 
who  knew  and  measured  him  survive.  In  such  cir 
cumstances  judgment  observes  the  juste  milieu ; 
being  disentangled  alike  from  the  personal  feeling, 
pro  and  con,  inevitable  in  life,  and  from  the  igno 
rance  which  grows  rank  over  his  grave  when  he  has 
been  long  dead. 

But,  after  all,  nothing  is  so  difficult  as  portraiture  ; 
for  description  is  not  life.  A  distinguished  painter 
once  said,  referring  to  a  tantalizingly  elusive  sitter  : 
"  I  can  do  no  more  than  just  make  a  memorandum  of 
such  a  face,  and  let  fancy  do  the  rest." 

In  his  outward  man  Wendell  Phillips  was  cast  in 
classic  mould.  His  oratorical  mother  was  Maia,  the 


490  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

Eloquent,  and  his  father  was  Jupiter,  the  Thunderer. 
Above  the  middle  height,  his  form  was  patterned 
after  the  best  models  of  manhood,  and  closely  re 
sembled,  by  actual  measurements,  the  Greek  Apollo. 
He  was  neither  stout  nor  thin,  but  retained  from 
youth  to  age  his  suppleness  and  grace  of  proportion. 
Of  nervous,  sanguine  temperament,  his  complexion 
was  ruddy,  and  gave  him  the  appearance  of  one 
whose  soul  looked  through  and  glorified  the  body. 
Hence  that  singular  radiance  which  was  often  start 
ling. 

The  head  was  finely  set  upon  broad  shoulders  and 
a  deep  chest.  The  chin  was  full  and  strong,  the 
lips  red  and  somewhat  compressed,  the  nose  aqui 
line,  the  eyes  blue,  small  but  piercing,  the  brow  both 
broad  and  high,  the  hair  of  that  tawny  hue  artists 
love, — 

"  The  golden  treasure  nature  showers  down 
On  those  foredoomed  to  wear  Fame's  golden  crown." 

In  middle  life  he  lost  a  large  part  of  his  hair  ;  but 
this  only  served  the  more  clearly  to  reveal  the  su 
perb  contour  of  the  s.kull.  His  profile  was  fine  cut 
as  a  cameo.  In  expression,  the  face  was  at  once  in 
tellectual  and  serene — wore  a  look  of  resolute  good 
ness.  His  pose  was  easy  and  natural,  every  change 
of  attitude  being  a  new  revelation  of  manly  grace. 
No  nobler  physique  ever  confronted  an  audience. 
A  patrician  air  accompanied  him  as  inevitably  as  the 
nimbus  does  a  saint  on  the  canvas  of  Murillo  or 
Titian.  It  is  rare  that  an  orator  receives  from 
nature  such  gifts  of  person.  Thus  his  appearance 
was  conciliatory  and  ingratiating.  It  filled  and  satis 
fied  the  eye  ere  the  ear  was  addressed.  On  rising, 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  49! 

he  slowly  buttoned  his  black  frock-coat  and  advanced 
to  his  position  on  the  platform  with  the  easy  deliber 
ation  of  a  gentleman  stepping  across  his  drawing- 
room.  His  attitude  was  a  study  for  the  sculptor — 
yet  unconscious  and  natural.  The  weight  of  the 
body  was  usually  supported  upon  the  left  foot,  with 
the  right  slightly  advanced  at  an  easy  angle.  It 
was  an  attitude  of  combined  firmness  and  repose — 
perfect  economy  of  muscular  effort.  Critics  felt  the 
force  of  the  orator's  own  remark  :  "In  a  public 
speaker  physical  advantages  are  half  the  battle." 

How  describe  the  voice  ?  It  was  of  no  great  range. 
In  the  higher  register  it  was  thin.  But  in  the  middle 
and  lower  notes,  where  he  usually  held  it,  it  resem 
bled  the  tones  of  Paganini's  violin.  It  was  smooth. 
It  was  SAveet.  It  was  penetrating.  And  it  was  so 
exquisitely  modulated  that  every  finest  shade  of 
thought,  each  most  delicate  distinction  of  expres 
sion,  was  discriminated  as  he  spoke.  He  had  a 
faculty  of  pouring  a  world  of  meaning  into  those 
quiet  utterances, — indignation,  wit,  sarcasm,  sug 
gestion,  moral  appeal,  legal  argument,  what  he 
would  ;  and  all  without  once  raising  his  voice.  It 
was  like  Ole  Bull's  inspired  playing  on  one  string 
— that  being  more  expressive,  under  his  bow,  than 
the  whole  instrument  in  any  other  hands.  Connois 
seurs  have  testified  that  no  other  speaker  here  or  in 
Europe  put  such  intense  feeling  into  so  small  a  com 
pass  of  voice,  scaling  the  heights  and  sounding  the 
depths  of  oratory  in  a  colloquial  tone.  In  one  of  his 
lectures,  speaking  of  a  certain  locality  in  Florence, 
he  said  :  "As  I  walked  the  pavement  I  suddenly 
came  upon  this  inscription,  under  my  very  feet,  '  On 
this  spot,  three  hundred  years  ago,  sat  Dante  !'  ' 


492  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

It  was  uttered  simply,  yet  with  such  an  entire  change 
of  voice  and  manner,  that  you  saw  what  he  saw — the 
image  of  the  Tuscan  poet  who  went  down  into  hell. 
Dante  was  conjured  into  being  and  stood  revealed 
in  the  solemn  hush  of  that  rhetorical  pause. 

His.  enunciation  was  an  added  charm.  Each  word 
was  as  distinctly  uttered  as  though  it  were  a  newly 
coined  gold  piece.  Yet  he  never  elocutionized. 
There  was  nothing  pedantic  in  his  utterance.  Like 
every  thing  else  about  his  oratory,  it  was  natural— 
or  seemed  so.  But  as  the  words  dropped  in  rhythmic 
succession  from  his  lips,  always  without  hesitation, 
each  one  the  best  that  could  possibly  be  chosen  to 
express  his  thought,  it  was  a  revelation  of  the 
strength  and  beauty  of  our  mother  tongue.  What 
you  listened  to  seemed  a  cross  between  a  strain  of 
music  and  a  poem.  This  rhythmic  quality  is  diffi 
cult  to  manage.  It  easily  becomes  sing-song.  Ed 
ward  Everett,  with  all  his  cunning,  carried  it  to  ex 
cess — was  immeasurably  measured.  A  close  ob 
server  could  frequently  detect  his  hand  covertly 
beating  time  to  his  words,  like  the  baton  of  a  leader 
of  the  orchestra.  In  Mr.  Phillips  the  rhythm  was 
felt  rather  than  perceived.  The  cadence  was  lulling 
and  beguiling,  never  obtrusive.  In  rate  of  utterance 
he  was  neither  fast  nor  slow — slow  enough  to  be 
distinctly  heard,  yet  fast  enough  to  give  the  impres 
sion  of  animation. 

The  orator's  action  comported  with  his  style.  Its 
effectiveness  resided  in  its  significance.  He  made 
many  more  gestures  than  he  got  credit  for  ;  but 
they  were  so  subordinated  to  the  thought  and  so 
illustrative  of  it,  that  they  illuded  attention  and 
seemed  only  parts  of  one  whole.  Hence  their  pro- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  493 

priety  and  ease  deceived  all  but  sharp  observers  into 
a  belief  in  their  infrequency.  There  they  were, 
nevertheless.  He  freely  used  the  open  palm,  now 
with  one  hand,  now  with  both.  In  the  more  moder 
ate  emphasis  of  feeling  he  placed  the  index  finger  in 
the  open  palm.  In  the  expression  of  ideas  that  were 
repugnant  he  employed  the  averted  palm.  Imagi 
nation  influenced  the  gestures  and  led  to  the  temper 
ate  use  of  highly  symbolic  action — always,  however, 
as  a  help  to  the  language.1  Thus  the  arms,  the 
hands,  the  fingers  became  co-ordinate  features  with 
the  countenance,  the  lips,  the  eyes,  and  were  moulded 
into  a  consummate,  poetic  tout  ensemble.  Indeed,  he 
impressed  you  as  being  unable  to  twist  his  form  or 
use  his  limbs  ungracefully.  All  the  while  there  was 
no  study,  no  attitudinizing.  It  seemed  Phillips's 
"  way." 

"  The  keynote  to  the  oratory  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  remarks  a 
competent  critic,  "  lay  in  this  :  that  it  was  essentially  conversa 
tional, — the  conversational  raised  to  its  highest  power.  Perhaps 
no  orator  ever  spoke  with  so  little  apparent  effort  or  began  so 
entirely  on  the  plane  of  his  average  hearers.  It  was  as  if  he 
simply  repeated,  in  a  little  louder  tone,  what  he  had  just  been 
saying  to  some  familiar  friend  at  his  elbow.  The  effect  was 
absolutely  disarming.  Those  accustomed  to  spread-eagle  elo 
quence  felt,  perhaps,  a  slight  sense  of  disappointment.  Could 
this  easy,  effortless  man  be  Wendell  Phillips  ?  But  he  held  them 
by  his  very  quietness  :  it  did  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  him 
to  doubt  his  power  to  hold  them.  The  poise  of  his  manly  figure, 
the  easy  grace  of  his  attitude,  the  thrilling  modulation  of  his 
perfectly  trained  voice,  the  dignity  of  his  gesture,  the  keen  pene 
tration  of  his  eye,  all  aided  to  keep  his  hearers  in  hand.  The 
colloquialism  was  never  relaxed  ;  but  it  was  familiarity  without 
loss  of  keeping.  When  he  said  isn't  and  wasn't,  or  even,  like 


V 
1  Vide  an  interesting  article  on  Mr.  Phillips  in  the  Andover  Review^ 


vol.  i,,  pp.  309  sqq.>  1884, 


494  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

an  Englishman,  dropped  his  g's,  it  did  not  seem  inelegant  ;  he 
might  almost  have  been  ungrammatical,  and  it  would  not  have 
impaired  the  fine  air  of  the  man.  Then,  as  the  argument  went 
on,  the  voice  grew  deeper,  the  action  more  animated,  and  the 
sentences  came  in  a  long,  sonorous  swell,  still  easy  and  grace 
ful,  but  powerful  as  the  soft  stretching  of  a  tiger's  paw.  He 
could  be  terse  as  Carlyle,  or  his  periods  could  be  as  prolonged 
and  cumulative  as  those  of  Choate  or  Evarts  :  no  matter  ;  they 
carried  in  either  case  the  same  charm."  l 

In  tone  and  manner,  although  thus  conversational, 
Mr.  Phillips  was  at  the  same  time  elevated.  It  has 
been  said  that  speaking  which  is  merely  conversa 
tional  has  no  lift  to  it  ;  the  mind  may  be  held  by  it, 
but  is  not  impressed.  On  the  other  hand,  speak 
ing  which  has  no  every-day  manner  as  its  basis  is 
stilted  and  fatiguing.  The  orator  should  frame  his 
style  on  the  level  of  plain,  common-sense  talk.  Then 
this  ought  to  lead  out  and  up  toward  vistas  of  cloud- 
land  and  the  music  of  the  spheres.2  In  this  regard 
Wendell  Phillips  is  a  model.  He  had  many  sur 
prises  of  thought  and  diction  ;  but  made  most  fre 
quent  use  of  short,  terse  sentences  whose  sense  was 
felt  the  instant  they  struck  the  ear,  and  whose  epi 
grammatic  point  made  them  stick  (and  sometimes 
tingle)  in  the  memory. 

It  was  this  colloquial  quality,  infinitely  varied  yet 
without  interruption,  which  made  him  the  least  te 
dious  of  speakers.  You  heard  him  an  hour,  two 
hours,  three  hours — and  \vere  unconscious  of  the  lapse 
of  time.  Indeed,  he  never  seemed  to  be  making  a 
speech.  It  was  no  oration  for  the  crown,  with  drum 


1  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  in  his  obituary  notice. 

2  "  Golden    Age  of    American   Oratory,"    by  Edward   G.   Parker. 
Notice  of  Wendell  Phillips. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  495 

and  trumpet  declamation, — only  a  gentleman  talking  ! 
He  had  exactly  the  manner  for  an  agitator,  it  was  so 
entirely  without  agitation.  This  repose,  fire  under 
snow,  enabled  him  to  husband  all  his  electricity  and 
flash  it  out  to  magnetize  the  audience. 

But  the  matter  of  his  speech  was  in  sharp  contrast 
with  his  manner.  This  was  in  constant  movement, 
and  sparkled  with  epigram,  laughed  with  anecdote, 
vibrated  with  argument,  thrilled  with  appeal,  glowed 
with  vivid  description,  abounded  in  apt  quotation 
gleaned  from  the  whole  field  of  history,  biography, 
and  ethics, — a  splendid  panorama,  brilliant  as  the 
essays  of  Macaulay,  aglow  with  diffused  fire.  He 
was  a  great  coiner  of  striking  phrases  ;  as  when  he 
said,  "  Liberty,  even  in  defeat,  knows  nothing  but 
victory."  He  was  master  of  epithets,  which,  when 
he  affixed  them,  clung  and  stung  ;  as  when  he  styled 
Rtifus  Choate  a  "  political  mountebank,"  and  char 
acterized  Daniel  Webster,  after  his  famous  (and  in 
famous)  /th  of  March  speech  in  the  Senate,  as  "  Sir 
Pertinax  McSycophant, "  and  referred  to  the 
"  cuckoo  lips  of  Edward  Everett,"  and  spoke  of  one 
of  the  mayors  of  the  Boston  of  mob  days  as,  "  not  a 
mayor,  but  a  lackey  in  the  mayor's  chair."  It  was 
this  astonishing  contrast  between  the  matter  of  his 
speech  that  resembled  Vesuvius  in  full  eruption, 
and  the  manner,  as  halcyon  as  a  summer  landscape, 
— it  was  this  that  bewildered  while  it  riveted  those 
who  heard  him  for  the  first  time.  His  foes  were  at 
the  same  moment  angered  by  the  matter  and  fasci 
nated  by  the  manner.  The  Richmond  Inquirer,  speak 
ing  of  him  before  the  Rebellion,  said  :  "  Wendell 
Phillips  is  an  infernal  machine  set  to  music." 

Seldom  moving,  never  outside  of  a  small  circle, 


496  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

and  speaking  in  this  self-contained  way,  of  course 
he  never  lost  his  head.  Addressing,  as  he  did,  audi 
ences  bitterly  hostile  through  a  great  part  of  his 
career, — audiences  not  seldom  assembled  expressly 
to  put  him  down,  his  serene  self-possession  placed  at 
his  service  his  whole  battery  of  unparalleled  re 
sources  ;  and  in  these  battles  with  the  mob  he  never 
failed  to  conquer  a  hearing.  He  would  tell  a  story  ; 
he  would  make  some  prominent  interrupter  a  target 
for  his  wit ;  he  would  shame  the  rioters  into  silence  ; 
he  would  appeal  to  their  better  instincts  ;  he  would 
demand  fair  play  ;  if  the  disturbance  became  too 
boisterous,  he  would  turn  to  the  reporter's  table  and 
say  :  "  Howl  on  :  through  these  fingers  I  address 
an  audience  of  30,000,000  !"  and  thus  pique  the 
rioters  into  silence  by  curiosity  :  in  one  way  or  an 
other,  and  without  descending  from  his  lofty  pedestal 
of  self-respect,  he  was  sure  to  have  his  say,  and  in 
the  most  uncompromising  style. 

Take  as  an  illustration  of  his  adroitness  in  man 
aging  an  unruly  crowd  a  passage  from  his  speech 
at  the  Lovejoy  meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall,  which  made 
him  famous,  away  back  at  the  outset  of  his  career — 
that  marvellous  extempore  reply  to  Attorney-Gen 
eral  Austin.  He  had  asserted  that  Lovejoy  died  for 
defending  the  freedom  of  the  press.  Then  he 
added  : 

"  The  disputed  right  which  provoked  the  Revolution — taxa 
tion  without  representation — is  far  beneath  that  for  which  he 
died.  [Here  there  was  a  strong  and  general  expression  of  dis 
approbation,  as  though  he  were  belittling  the  heroes  of  17/6. 
With  a  commanding  gesture,  Mr.  Phillips  cried  :]  One  word, 
gentlemen.  As  much  as  thought  is  better  than  money,  so  much 
is  the  cause  in  which  Lovejoy  died  nobler  than  a  mere  question 
of  taxes.  James  Otis  thundered  in  this  hall  when  the  King  did 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  497 

but  touch  his  pocket.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  his  indignant  elo 
quence,  had  England  offered  to  put  a  gag  upon  his  lips."  (Tre 
mendous  cheering.) 

Such  instances  might  be  multiplied  ad  infinitum. 
How  well  he  could  tell  a  story  let  this  passage 
show — taken  from  one  of  his  earlier  addresses  : 

"  That  most  eloquent  of  all  Southerners,  as  I  think  Mr.  Sar 
gent  S.  Prentiss,  of  Mississippi,  was  addressing  a  crowd  of  four 
thousand  people  in  his  State,  defending  the  tariff,  and  in  the 
course  of  an  eloquent  period  which  rose  to  a  beautiful  climax, 
he  painted  the  thrift,  the  energy,  the  comfort,  the  wealth,  the 
civilization  of  the  North,  in  glowing  colors, — when  there  rose  on 
the  vision  of  the  assembly,  in  the  open  air,  a  horseman  of  mag 
nificent  proportions  ;  and  just  at  the  moment  of  hushed  atten 
tion,  when  the  voice  of  Prentiss  had  ceased  and  the  applause 
was  about  to  break  forth,  the  horseman  exclaimed,  '  D —  the 
North  ! '  The  curse  was  so  much  in  unison  with  the  habitual 
feeling  of  a  Mississippi  audience  that  it  quenched  their  enthusi 
asm,  and  nothing  but  respect  for  the  speaker  kept  them  from 
cheering  the  horseman.  Prentiss  turned  upon  his  lame  foot, 
and  said  : 

'  '  Major  Moody,  will  you  rein  in  that  horse  a  moment  ?  ' 

"  He  assented.    The  orator  went  on  : 

"  '  Major,  the  horse  on  which  you  ride  came  from  Upper  Mis 
souri  ;  the  saddle  that  surmounts  him  came  from  Trenton, 
N.  J.  ;  the  hat  on  your  head  came  from  Danbury,  Conn.  ;  the 
boots  you  wear  came  from  Lynn,  Mass.  ;  the  linen  on  your  shirt 
is  Irish,  and  Boston  made  it  up  ;  your  broadcloth  coat  is  of 
Lowell  manufacture,  and  was  cut  in  New  York  ;  and  if  to-day 
you  surrender  what  you  owe  the  "  d —  North"  you  would  sit 
stark  naked.'  ' 

Frederick  Douglass  (himself  one  of  the  most  effec 
tive  of  orators)  has  well  said  : 

"  Eloquent  as  Mr.  Phillips  was  as  a  lecturer,  he  was  far  more 
effective  as  a  debater.  Debate  was  to  him  the  flint  and  steel 
which  brought  out  all  his  fire.  His  memory  was  wonderful.  He 
would  listen  to  an  elaborate  speech  for  hours,  and,  without  a 


498  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

single  note  of  what  had  been  said,  in  writing,  reply  to  every 
part  of  it  as  fully  and  completely  as  if  the  speech  were  written 
out  before  him.  Those  who  heard  him  when  not  confronted  by 
an  opponent  have  a  very  limited  comprehension  of  his  amazing 
resources  as  a  speaker."  l 

In  power  of  invective,  Mr.  Phillips,  by  common 
acknowledgment,  stands  at  the  head  of  all  orators, 
ancient  or  modern.  He  gave  new  meaning  to  the 
word  Philippic.  Certain  it  is  that  as  it  regards  popu 
lar  effect,  immediate  effect,  nothing  equals  this  qual 
ity  on  the  platform — nothing  can  compensate  the 
lack  of  it  in  an  orator.  As  the  immortality  of  Junius 
lies  in  his  personalities,  as  Patrick  Henry  is  best  re 
membered  by  his  characterization  of  the  dishonest 
contractor  with  whose  name  he  made  the  colonies 
ring,  so  Wendell  Phillips  will  ever  be  remembered 
because  of  those  thunderbolts  which  he  hurled  so 
serenely  ;  and  which,  because  of  his  calmness,  en 
chanted  while  they  appalled.  It  was  like  witnessing 
a  fire  or  a  battle. 

As  an  instance  of  this,  and  also  of  the  classic  style 
of  which  he  was  master,  study  his  lecture  on 

Idols,"  in  which  occurs  the  following  celebrated 
passage  referring  to  Rufus  Choate  : 

"Yet  this  is  the  model  which  Massachusetts  offers  to  the 
Pantheon  of  the  great  jurists  of  the  world  ! 

"  Suppose  we  stood  in  that  lofty  temple  of  jurisprudence, — on 
either  side  of  us  the  statues  of  the  great  lawyers  of  every  age 
and  clime, — and  let  us  see  what  part  New  England — Puritan, 
educated,  free  New  England — would  bear  in  the  pageant.  Rome 
points  to  a  colossal  figure,  and  says,  '  That  is  Papinian,  who, 
when  the  Emperor  Caracalla  murdered  his  own  brother,  and 
ordered  the  lawyer  to  defend  the  deed,  went  cheerfully  to  death, 


1  Address  in  Washington,   D.  C.,  before  the  colored   people,  on 
Wendell  Phillips,  after  his  funeral  in  1884. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  499 

rather  than  sully  his  lips  with  the  atrocious  plea  ;  and  that  is 
Ulpian,  who,  aiding  his  prince  to  put  the  army  below  the  law, 
was  massacred  at  the  foot  of  a  weak,  but  virtuous  throne.' 

44  And  France  stretches  forth  her  grateful  hands,  crying, 
'That  is  D'Aguesseau,  worthy,  when  he  went  to  face  an  en 
raged  king,  of  the  farewell  his  wife  addressed  him — "  Go  !  for 
get  that  you  have  a  wife  and  children  to  ruin,  and  remember 
only  that  you  have  France  to  save." 

"  England  says,  '  That  is  Coke,  who  flung  the  laurels  of  eighty 
years  in  the  face  of  the  first  Stuart,  in  defence  of  the  people. 
This  is  Selden,  on  every  book  of  whose  library  you  saw  written 
the  motto  of  which  he  lived  worthy,  "  Before  everything,  Lib 
erty  !"  That  is  Mansfield,  silver-tongued,  who  proclaimed, 

4  "  Slaves  cannot  breathe  in  England  ;  if  their  lungs 
Receive  our  air,  that  moment  they  are  free." 

This  is  Romilly,  who  spent  life  trying  to  make  law  synony 
mous  with  justice,  and  succeeded  in  making  life  and  property 
safer  in  every  city  of  the  empire.  And  that  is  Erskine,  whose 
eloquence,  spite  of  Lord  Eldon  and  George  III.,  made  it  safe  to 
speak  and  to  print.' 

41  Then  New  England  shouts,  *  This  is  Choate,  who  made  it 
safe  to  murder  ;  and  of  whose  health  thieves  asked  before  they 
began  to  steal.'  "  ] 

These  words  are  sufficiently  sensational  as  they  lie 
under  the  eye  in  cold  type.  Imagine,  then,  the 
effect  as  they  fell  from  the  lips  of  the  orator.  There 
is  no  more  tremendous  climax  on  record. 

No  doubt  Mr.  Phillips,  like  all  supreme  speakers, 
was  a  born  fighter.  He  had  the  ccrtaminis gaudia — 
the  joy  of  disputation — common  to  intellectual  gladi 
ators.  Occasionally,  this  got  the  better  of  his  judg 
ment,  and  he  fought  to  win,  as  well  as  for  the  glory 
of  God.  But  when  it  did,  like  a  skilful  rider,  he 
soon  recovered  the  reins  of  his  conscience  and  made 


Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  253. 


500  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

glad  amends.  It  must  be  conceded  that  rarely  are 
such  magnificent  abilities  so  conscientiously  directed. 

The  orator  almost  always  spoke  without  notes. 
On  the  few  occasions  when  he  used  them  they  were 
an  evident  embarrassment  :  it  was  like  an  eagle  walk 
ing.  At  the  start  he  was  accustomed  to  prepare  his 
speeches  with  care  ;  but  as  we  have  seen,  his  first 
great  success  was  won  off-hand,  and  "  afterward," 
as  one  of  his  intimates  tells  us,  "  during  that  period 
of  incessant  practice  which  Emerson  makes  the 
secret  of  his  power,  he  relied  generally  upon  his 
vast  accumulated  store  of  facts  and  illustrations,  and 
his  tried  habit  of  thinking  on  his  legs."  Of  course, 
his  lectures  ("  The  Lost  Arts/'  "  Street  Life  in 
Europe,"  '  Daniel  O' Council,"  "  Sir  Harry  Vane," 
and  the  rest)  were  all  carefully  prepared — though 
never  written  out.  So  also  were  some  of  his  elabo 
rate  speeches,  like  those  on  "  Disunion,"  and  "  Prog 
ress,"  and  the  "  Phi  Beta  Kappa"  oration  at  Cam 
bridge,  in  the  summer  of  1881.  But  he  was  never 
so  felicitous,  never  so  thrilling,  never  so  command 
ing  as  when  most  extemporaneous, — and  especially 
if  hissed  or  mobbed.  Then  his  port  and  utterance 
afforded  a  spectacle  of  the  moral  sublime. 

The  truth  is,  he  was  always  preparing.  He  read, 
studied,  thought,  with  one  eye  on  the  platform. 
Whatever  could  "  point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale"  he 
carefully  appropriated  and  thrust  into  some  mental 
pigeon-hole,  where  he  could  lay  hands  on  it  and  bring 
it  out  on  occasion.  In  speaking  of  his  habit  of 
preparation,  he  said  :  "  The  chief  thing  I  aim  at  is  to 
master  my  subject.  Then  I  earnestly  try  to  get  the 
audience  to  think  as  I  do." 

Mr.  Phillips  had  a  theory  that  speaking  and  writing 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  5OI 

require  such  different  habits  of  mind  'that  $uccess  in 
one  arena  makes  failure  quite  sure  in  the  other.  In 
proof  of  this  he  used  to  cite  Patrick  Henry,  Fisher 
Ames,  Sargent  S.  Prentiss,  Tom  Corwin,  and  Henry 
Clay,  monarchs  of  the  platform,  but  who  seldom 
wrote  ;  and  whose  speeches  are  dry  reading — prob 
ably  because  their  reputation  dwarfs  the  text,  which 
seems  doubly  lifeless  without  the  speaker's  person 
ality,  like  a  body  when  the  spirit  is  departed.  Ac 
cordingly,  he  took  little  interest  in  his  speeches  after 
they  were  delivered.  Each  had  a  purpose  at  the 
moment,  performed  its  errand,  and  was  left  to  die. 
Even  his  lectures  he  did  not  care  to  see  in  print. 
He  thought  they  would  not  read  as  he  made  them 
sound— nor  do  they.  Yet  Wendell  Phillips  refutes 
his  own  theory.  For  though,  of  course,  we  miss 
the  living  presence,  spite  of  this  drawback,  the  pub 
lished  speeches  are  wonderfully  stirring,  and  seem, 
in  Milton's  phrase,  "  The  precious  life-blood  of  a 
master  spirit  treasured  up  on  purpose  to  a  life  be 
yond  life."  They  afford,  beyond  all  comparison, 
whether  in  America  or  in  England,  the  best  speci 
mens  in  literature  of  extemporaneous  eloquence. 
Some  of  them  suggest  Burke  in  the  Senate  and  Plato 
in  the  groves  of  the  Academy.  Read,  for  example, 
the  "  Philosophy  of  the  Abolition  Movement,"  l  in 
which  he  vindicates  the  justice  and  shows  the  reason 
of  the  Anti-Slavery  crusade  in  a  diction  brocaded 
with  splendor.  Or  turn  to  the  speech  on  "  Woman's 
Rights,"  2  delivered  at  Worcester,  in  Massachusetts, 
in  1851, — a  presentation  which,  affirms  George 
William  Curtis,  "  more  than  any  other  single  im- 


"  Speeches  and  Lectures,"  p.  98.  a  /£.,  p.  u. 


502  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

pulse,  launched  that  question  upon  the  sea  of  popu 
lar  controversy. ' '  Yes  ;  the  printed  speeches  are  a 
precious  legacy — a  memento  and  an  inspiration. 
Would  that  we  had  more  of  them  ! 

In  commenting  upon  his  characteristics  as  a  speak 
er,  Clarence  Cook  observes  that  they  "  were  a  logi 
cal,  lawyer-like  setting  out  of  his  subject  and  great 
closeness  in  his  argument,  so  that  if  he  went  off  a 
little  to  meet  an  interruption,  or  to  answer  a  ques 
tion,  or  to  parry  the  thrust  of  an  insult  or  threat  in 
terjected,  he  quickly  returned  and  beat  out  the  iron 
on  his  anvil. 

The  oratory  of  Wendell  Phillips  illustrated  the 
truth  that,  after  all,  character  is  the  secret  of  the 
highest  speech.  As  the  Sage  of  Concord  puts  it  : 
"  There  is  no  eloquence  without  a  man  behind  it." 
Academic  rhetoric  may  charm  ;  the  arts  of  the 
trained  advocate,  the  hired  argument  of  an  Ogden 
Hoffman  or  a  Rufus  Choate  may  astonish  ;  the  selfish 
appeals  of  the  political  orator  may  win  noisy  ap 
plause  from  those  who  hope  to  devour  the  loaves 
and  fishes  of  party  ;  but  the  oratory  that  holds  the 
present  and  moulds  the  future  must  have  for  a  basis 
the  moral  element.  Eloquent  utterance  plus  charac 
ter — what  can  equal  that  ? 

Here  Mr.  Phillips  was  supreme.  Everybody 
knew,  he  made  those  who  heard  him  feel  that  he 
was  not  posing  for  popular  effect.  He  stood  the 
embodiment  of  a  cause.  Every  sentence  was  sur 
charged  with  moral  conviction.  It  was  perceived 


1  "  Wendell    Phillips,"   a  eulogy    delivered    before    the    municipal 
authorities  of  Boston,  Mass.,  April  iSth,  1884. 
9  In  Johnson's  New  Universal  Cyclop<zdiat  in  loco. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  503 

that  he  suppressed  rather  than  expressed  all  he  felt. 
From  opening  to  close  his  words,  distinct  and  softly 
rounded  as  though  stamped  on  satin,  were  warm 
with  the  composed  passion  of  an  honest  nature  face 
to  face  with  heaven-defying  wickedness.  Such 
speech  has  the  force  of  dynamite.  It  convicts  while 
it  convinces.  It  compels  respect  by  deserving  it. 

The  period  in  which  Mr.  Phillips  lived  was  prolific 
of  great  speakers — like  all  eras  of  revolution.  They 
march  in  battalions,  on  both  sides  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line.  In  a  broad  characterization,  those  of 
the  South  were  more  declamatory  ;  those  of  the 
North  were  more  argumentative.  The  Southerners 
excelled  in  outburst  power  ;  the  Ivfortherners  were, 
as  a  rule,  less  volcanic.  Those  talked  bullets  ;  these 
believed  in  ideas.  It  was  the  difference  between 
rain  in  summer  and  rain  in  winter — the  same  ele 
ment  ;  but  in  one  case  liquid,  and  in  the  other  case 
snow  At  the  same  time  it  must  be  confessed  that 
the  North  did  not  lack  for  tongues  of  fire. 

If  we  compare  Wendell  Phillips  with  others  of  his 
contemporaries,  we  shall  find  that  he  was  excelled 
by  one  and  another  in  special  qualities.  At  the 
South,  Calhoun  was  more  logical  in  his  general  style, 
Clay  was  more  thrilling,  Prentiss  was  more  pictu 
resque.  At  the  North,  Webster  had  a  more  sustained 
splendor  of  diction  and  greater  majesty.  Everett 
surpassed  him  in  elaboration,  and  indulged  in  more 
frequent  bursts  of  beauty.  Choate  was  more  elec 
tric.  Corwin  better  pleased  the  crowd — was  half 
clown  and  the  other  half  genius.  Sumner  was  more 
pretentiously  the  scholar,  and  excelled  in  copious 
illustration  that  exhausted  a  subject  to  the  bottom. 
Chapin  oftener  soared.  Beecher  abounded  more  in 


504  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

the  bravuras  ol  oratory — was  an  embodied  thunder 
storm.  Lincoln  was  superior  in  the  Eastern  art  of 
story-telling — the  ability  to  pack  the  entire  meaning 
of  the  hour  in  a  pat  anecdote.  Douglass  had  more 
pathos.  Curtis  might  be  better  depended  upon  as  a 
speaker  for  set  occasions.  Ingersoll  exceeded  him 
in  the  art  ad  captandum  vulgus.  Nevertheless,  in  the 
perfect  moulding  of  an  orator  he  surpassed  each  of 
these.  On  the  whole  he  was  a  more  interesting  and 
instructive  speaker  than  any  of  his  contemporaries 
in  their  palmiest  days.  This  is  superlative  praise  ; 
but  the  record  is  true.  Let  it  be  written  while  liv 
ing  witnesses  can  attest  it  and  before  his  eloquence, 
like  the  song  of  Orpheus,  fades  into  a  doubtful 
tradition. 

Yes  ;  as  an  orator  Wendell  Phillips  was  peerless. 
He  possessed  that  quality  which  Emerson  thought 
the  highest  of  all, — of  being  "  something  that  cannot 
be  skipped  or  undermined."  Those  who  were  priv 
ileged  to  hear  him  often,  and  who  were  familiar  as 
well  with  the  best  eloquence  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  will  agree  with  Professor  Bryce,  the  phil 
osophic  Englishman  whose  recent  delineation  of  our 
institution  is  the  only  rival  of  D'Tocqueville's  "  De 
mocracy  in  America," — that  "  he  was  in  the  opinion 
of  competent  critics  one  of  the  first  orators  of  the 
present  century,  and  not  more  remarkable  for  the 
finish  than  for  the  transparent  simplicity  of  his  style, 
which  attained  its  highest  effects  by  the  most  direct 
and  natural  methods."  ' 

The  greatest  of  compliments  is  imitation.  The 
whole  school  of  Anti-Slavery  speakers  echoed  the 


"  The  American  Commonwealth,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  659. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  505 

manner  and  especially  the  intonations  of  Wendell 
Phillips.  More  important  than  this,  his  style  set  a 
fashion.  It  taught  the  bar,  the  pulpit,  the  platform 
the  value  of  high-bred  conversationalism  as  the  most 
effective  vehicle  of  thought  and  emotion.  With  his 
advent  roar  and  rant  went  out  of  date.  The  era  of 
trained  naturalism  opened.  Thus  he  made  every 
speaker  and  every  audience  his  debtor. 


VI. 

THE  MAN. 

TURNING  now  from  the  orator,  we  pass  to  a  criti 
cal  estimate  of  the  man. 

Genius  is  of  three  kinds.     Some  men  are  great  in 

o 

a  single  faculty,  which  overshadows  the  rest  and 
rules  in  the  realm  of  mind  ;  others,  in  kindred  facul 
ties  with  mutual  affinities  ;  others  still  in  the  general 
range  and  elevation  of  all  the  higher  powers.  The 
genius  of  Wendell  Phillips,  as  Theodore  D.  Weld 
points  out,  in  a  passage  of  wise  discrimination,  was  of 
this  latter  type.  '  It  was  no  king  among  his  other 
powers,  but  a  ruler  among  rulers,  each  co-ordinate 
Avith  each  in  a  balanced  equality.  Strong  in  each  of 
its  elements,  ethic,  aesthetic,  logical,  philosophical, 
critical,  emotional,  imaginative,  all  these  with  con 
science  and  indomitable  will  were  the  rounded  man 
himself.  The  large  stature  of  his  powers,  their  ex 
alted  level,  each  a  vital  constituent  of  his  genius, 
made  him  in  their  combination  what  he  was — an 
aggregation  of  great  mental  and  moral  forces  crys 
tallized  into  character." 

He  had  feminine  intuition  with  masculine  reason. 
The  whole  ground  of  rights  and  wrongs,  not  only  in 
gross  but  in  detail,  not  more  in  the  coarser  than  in 
the  most  refined  features  of  both,  he  instantly  saw, 
grasped,  and  discriminated* 

When  he  had  chosen,  there  he  stood,  serene,  self- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  507 

poised,   never  lonely  though  alone,    untroubled    oy 
doubt  with  everybody  else  in  a  quandary,— 

"  The  star  that  looked  on  tempests  and  was  still  unshaken." 

He  had  both  kinds  of  courage  ;  that  highest,  the 
moral,  which  held  him  firm,  true,  unmoved  by  scoff 
of  foe  or  kiss  of  friend  ;  and  that  lowest,  the  physi 
cal,  which  led  him  to  confront  a  mob  or  brave  assas 
sination  with  the  nonchalance  of  a  veteran  cam 
paigner  stooping  to  tie  his  shoe  in  a  rain  of  bullets. 

The  genius  of  Mr.  Phillips  was  highly  cultivated. 
All  that  early  training,  later  culture,  and  foreign 
travel  could  do  to  polish  and  refine  had  been  done. 
When,  therefore,  such  a  man  so  dowered  left  the 
Palace  of  Pharaoh  for  the  brick-yard,  the  companion 
ship  of  princes  for  the  society  of  slaves,  the  force  of 
his  conviction  and  the  fibre  of  his  manhood  may  be 
measured. 

He  retained  through  life  the  taste  and  habits  of 
scholarship.  The  classics  were  often  in  his  hands 
and  on  his  lips.  Mediaeval  Latin,  too  (the  language 
of  the  learned  world  for  a  thousand  years),  was  an 
open  book  to  him.  We  might  change  a  little  and 
apply  to  him  that  which  Macaulay  quotes  Denham 
as  felicitously  saying  of  Cowley  :  "  He  spoke  the 
tongue,  but  did  not  wear  the  clothes  of  the  ancients." 
Of  modern  languages,  French  was  his  favorite,  and 
he  had  the  accent  of  a  Parisian  ;  but  he  also  read 
German,  Italian,  and  Spanish. 

While  in  college  Mr.  Phillips  formed  a  habit, 
which  he  never  lost,  of  making  special  historic  peri 
ods  subjects  of  microscopic  investigation.  Thus  he 
spent  a  twelvemonth  in  studying  the  English  Revo 
lution  of  1640 — the  seed-time  of  modern  political 


508  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ethics  and  religious  opinion.  He  ransacked  every 
speech,  memoir,  novel,  play,  from  Clarendon  to 
Godwin,  and  made  himself  the  best  authority  of  his 
time  upon  that  epoch.  In  the  same  way  he  devoted 
a  year  to  the  reign  of  George  III. — the  birth-time  of 
American  liberty.  The  history  of  the  Colonial  and 
Revolutionary  period  he  knew  by  heart.  The  story 
which  his  friend  Motley  retold  with  such  graphic 
power,  that  wonderful  romance  of  Holland,  he  had 
at  the  end  of  his  tongue.  And  Lamartine  was  hardly 
more  familiar  than  Phillips  with  the  French  Revo 
lution — in  which,  as  Carlyle  said,  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  committed  suicide  by  blowing  its  own  brains 
out. 

He  studied  chemistry  as  other  men  read  novels, 
for  amusement.  He  was  fond  of  those  authors  who 
(like  the  late  Charles  Reade)  freshen  things.  He 
kept  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  modern 
governmental  action  ;  and  General  Butler,  a  com 
petent  witness  on  such  a  point,  affirms  that  after  he 
quitted  the  law  he  by  no  means  laid  aside  its  stud)'  : 

Whoever  in  his  later  years  had  an  opportunity  to 
converse  with  him  on  legal  topics  was  surprised  to 
find  how  thoroughly  he  kept  pace  with  the  modifica 
tions  of  legal  principles  as  shown  in  current  decisions 
of  the  courts." 

With  reference  to  his  scholarly  preferences  an 
intimate  friend  writes  : 

"  The  character  of  a  man  is  revealed  by  a  knowledge  of  his 
heroes.  Those  of  Mr.  Phillips  in  English  history  were  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  Andrew  Marvel,  Pym,  Sir  Harry  Vane,  Crom 
well,  Chesterfield,  De  Foe,  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  John 
Hunter,  Tames  Watt,  and  Brindley.  In  American  history  they 
were  Jay,  Franklin,  Hamilton,  Sam  Adams,  and  Eli  Whitney. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  509 

Among  novelists.  R'chardson  was  a  favorite  ;  Scott  he  knew  by 
heart.  In  French  literature  he  preferred  Sully,  Rochefoucauld, 
De  Retz,  Pascal,  Tocqueville,  Guizot,  and  Victor  Hugo.  In  Eng 
lish,  his  pets  were  Swift,  Ben  Jonson,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Massen- 
ger,  Milton,  Southey,  Lamb,  the  elder  D'israeli,  and  '  all  of 
Horace  Walpole. '  He  was  late  in  opening  Shakespeare.  Eliza 
beth  Barrett  Browning  he  regarded  as  the  first  of  modern  poets. 
And  he  thought  that  George  Eliot  and  Charlotte  Bronte  saw  life 
deeper  and  truer  than  either  Dickens  or  Thackeray,  though  they 
lacked  the  artistic  skill  of  their  more  celebrated  contempo 
raries." 

At  the  same  time  Mr.  Phillips  was  an  omnivorous 
reader  of  newspapers.  These  have  been  called  the 
American  Bible.  We  may  be  sure,  however,  that 
he  scanned  them,  not  with  idolatrous  eyes,  but  for 
the  light  they  threw  upon  contemporaneous  affairs 
— for  this,  and  for  their  inevitable  forecast  of  what 
lay  ahead.  He  knew,  none  better,  the  charm  of 
anecdote,  the  value  of  illustrations  fetched  from  his 
tory  and  biography.  His  speeches  abound  in  apt 
Hillings  from  these  sources.  This  wide  range  and 
varied  taste  stored  his  mind  with  effective  stories  and 
telling  facts.  When  once  on  his  legs  and  in  full 
career  he  laid  the  hand  of  a  master  upon  the  entire 
encyclopaedia  of  knowledge,  and  seemed  "  crowned 
with  the  spoil  of  every  science  and  decked  with  the 
wreath  of  every  muse." 

Mr.  Phillips  has  been  termed  the  latest  and  the 
largest  of  the  Puritans.  The  elixir  of  conscience 
diffused  through  his  clerical  ancestors  was  concen 
trated  and  potted  in  him.  This  gave  him  an  unparal 
leled  moral  ascendency.  His  career  was  a  splendid 
exhibition  of  conscientiousness.  Born  in  the  purple, 
equipped  with  intellectual  gifts  and  culture,  and 
dowered  with  personal  charms  and  accomplish- 


510  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ments  admirably  fitted  to  secure  him  any  place  to 
which  he  might  aspire  in  society,  in  the  Senate,  or 
at  the  bar,  had  he  consented  to  file  down  his  truth 
and  turn  but  a  little  aside  from  the  narrow  path  oi 
conviction  ;  he  left  his  decorated  world,  sacrificed 
his  brilliant  prospects,  threw  up  his  early  friendships 
and  scorned  the  allurements  which  fascinate  man 
kind, — all  for  a  principle.  Such  self-denial  is  sub 
lime.  Since  Christ,  life  for  others  has  been  the  high 
est  kind  of  life.  Hence  Mr.  Phillips  takes  an  undis 
puted  place  among  heroes  and  saints. 

Of  his  benevolence  what  was  his  whole  life  but  the 
expression  ?  There  are  some  who,  while  lavish  of 
words  and  even  of  personal  efforts,  are  stingy  when 
the  coin  demanded  is  coin  current.  Not  so  Mr. 
Phillips.  His  liberality  was  unbounded.  Literally, 
he  gave  away  a  fortune.  Among  his  effects  after  his 
death  was  found  an  old  memorandum  book,  cover 
ing  the  years  from  1845  to  1875.  In  this  he  credits 
himself  with  personal  gifts  aggregating  over  $65,000. 
And  this  was  but  a  fraction  of  what  he  bestowed— 
only  what  he  handed  out  at  home  and  with  the 
memorandum  book  within  reach.  Some  of  the  en 
tries  are  curious.  They  show  that  he  supported 
many  families  in  whole  or  in  part  ;  and  not  a  few 
well-known  names  figure  among  his  beneficiaries. 
Page  after  page  reads  like  this, — John  Brown  figur 
ing  conspicuously  : 

John  Brown $10.00 

A  poor  Italian 2.00 

Mrs.  Garnaut 10.00 

Poor  man i.oo 

Refugee 5.00 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  51  I 

The  orator's  wealth  has  been  exaggerated.  He 
inherited  something  from  his  parents.  His  wife  also 
added  to  the  common  stock.  But  it  is  certain  that 
their  joint  fortunes  never  exceeded  $100,000.  Dur 
ing  many  years  Mr.  Phillips  made  large  sums  by  his 
lectures.  His  income  from  this  source  ranged  from 
§10,000  to  §15, ooo  a  year.  He  might  have  lived  in 
luxurious  ease.  No  one  would  have  criticised.  In 
stead  of  that,  he  dwarfed  his  wants  to  the  minimum. 
His  house  was  in  a  quarter  of  Boston  never  fashion 
able,  and  at  last  given  over  to  shops.  It  was  almost 
bare  :  partly,  no  doubt,  because  the  lifelong  invalid- 
ism  of  Mrs.  Phillips  and  the  lack  of  children  deprived 
him  of  an  incentive  to  dwell  under  a  lordlier  roof- 
tree  ;  but  chiefly  in  order  that  he  might  be  free  to 
spend  in  unselfishness.  That  plain  house — was  it  not 
a  Mecca  ?  The  panting  fugitive  knew  it,  and  tested 
its  hospitality  and  strong  protection.  The  unfortu 
nate  of  whatever  color,  sex,  age,  social  condition, 
wore  the  threshold  thin  with  their  needy  feet. 
Who  ever  heard  of  anybody's  being  turned  away 
unpitied,  unaided  ?  Aside  from  this  unstinted  private 
charity,  he  gave  like  a  prince  and  through  decades 
to  the  great  causes  that  were  near  and  dear  to  him. 
Many  were  the  students,  black  and  white,  whom  he 
supported.  He  would  frequently  travel  long  dis 
tances  to  deliver  a  lecture  for  the  benefit  of  some 
deserving  scholar,  to  whom  he  would  make  over  the 
whole  proceeds. 

During  the  Anti-Slavery  period,  when  invited  to 
lecture  here,  there,  and  yonder,  and  asked  to  name 
his  price,  his  habitual  response  was  : 

"  If  you  want  a  literary  lecture,  the  price  is  so  and 
so  [a  high  one].  But  if  you  will  let  me  speak  on 


512  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

slavery    I   will   come  for  nothing  and  pay  my  own 
expenses  !" 

This  was  a  sly  way  he  had  of  bribing  unfriendly 
lyceurns — and  it  usually  succeeded.  Even  when  he 
spoke  on  a  literary  theme,  conservative  committees 
were  always  fearful  lest  this  dealer  in  forensic  fire 
brands  should  smuggle  into  his  sentences  gunpowder 
enough  to  blow  up  the  hall.  They  listened  between 
fear  and  admiration,  half  expecting  an  explosion,  and 
felt  as  Burns  did  when  he  wrote  his  "  Epistle  to  a 
Young  Friend  :" 

'  Perhaps  it  may  turn  out  a  sang, 
Perhaps  turn  out  a  sermon." 

When  Mr.  Phillips  died  he  left  almost  nothing. 
He  said  to  a  friend  only  two  or  three  days  before 
his  death  that  he  had  no  wish  to  leave  a  fortune  to 
anybody  or  anything  ;  that  his  idea  of  living  was  to 
walk  with  open  heart  and  open  hand  from  day  to 
day  ;  and  that  he  had  done  all  he  could  in  this  way 
—  he  had  been  his  o\vn  executor. 

His  general  benevolence  assumed  a  special  and 
tender  form  where  "  Ann"  was  concerned.  His  de 
votion  to  her  was  idyllic.  He  gave  her  an  amount 
and  quality  of  attention  quite  unprecedented.  Once 
when  her  sickness  deepened  into  immediate  danger, 
he  waited  on  her  for  sixty  days  without  leaving  the 
house.  He  found  in  that  invalid's  chamber  oppor 
tunity  for  the  exercise  of  every  domestic  virtue. 
Denied  the  experience  of  fatherhood,  he  made 
"Ann"  both  wife  and  child.  Was  she  secluded? 
He  shut  himself  in.  Was  she  lonely  ?  He  became 
her  sufficient  companion.  Was  she  in  pain  ?  He 
medicined  her  with  sympathy.  Did  she  want  this, 
would  she  have  that  ?  It  was  laid  at  her  feet. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  513 

When  in  town,  he  went  to  market  and  ordeved  the 
dinner,  because  he  "  knew  Ann's  tastes."  Indiffer 
ent  about  the  table  for  himself,  he  became  a  very 
epicure  for  her.  He  would  buy  two  boxes  of  straw 
berries,  so  that  she  might  have  the  best  of  each.  He 
would  go  over  a  bushel  of  potatoes  to  get  a  peck  of 
one  size  to  bake  for  her  breakfast.  In  purchasing 
peas,  he  would  handle  every  pod  to  see  that  they 
were  soft  and  tender,  "  as  Ann  wanted  them. "  Win 
ter  or  summer,  pleasant  or  stormy,  he  might  fre 
quently  be  seen  at  night  foraging  for  "  Ann/'  who 
had  a  sudden  invalid's  whim  for  chicken  or  ice 
cream.  There  were  times,  of  course,  when  the  pecul 
iar  ailment  of  Mrs.  Phillips  made  her  fretful  and 
exacting.  He  never  lost  his  temper  or  his  patience 
on  such  occasions,  was  never  hurried  or  flurried,  but 
went  about  low-voiced  and  composed,  uncomplain 
ing  and  attentive.  Womanhood  owes  Wendell  Phil 
lips  a  heavy  debt.  But  no  other  item  in  the  indebted 
ness  is  so  heavy  as  the  gratitude  due  him  for  that 
knight-errantry  of  half  a  century. 

Under  his  own  roof  Mr.  Phillips  was  quiet, — 
almost  taciturn.  He  was  the  most  unexacting  and 
gentle  of  men — grateful  for  any  attention.  He  read 
to  Mrs.  Phillips  and  entertained  her  with  outside 
news  daily,  but  this  was  usually  at  or  about  tea- 
time.  The  evenings  at  home  he  passed  in  his  own 
study,  reading,  writing,  meditating,  as  the  demands 
upon  him  or  his  mood  might  dictate.  Callers  were 
always  welcome,  and  were  sure,  whatever  their 
errand,  of  a  patient  hearing  and  a  gracious  dismis 
sion. 

In  Mr.  Phillips  there  was  no  guile.  His  nature, 
like  his  life,  was  open  and  without  concealment. 


514  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Neither  was  there  a  trace  of  self-display,  nor  hardly 
of  self-consciousness.  lie  thought  of  himself  last 
and  least,  spent  almost  nothing  upon  himself,  and 
made  no  provision  for  posthumous  fame.  Never 
were  equally  great  powers  wedded  to  such  modesty 
nor  enshrined  in  a  form  so  gracious  and  urbane. 

He  had  no  personal  enemies.  In  private  life  all 
said  of  him  : 

"  None  knew  thee  but  to  love  thee, 
Nor  named  thee  but  to  praise." 

In  his  personal  habits  Mr.  Phillips  was  as  conserv 
ative  as  he  was  radical  in  his  thought  and  speech. 
We  have  mentioned  his  attachment  to  his  home  for 
forty  years.  In  the  same  way  he  frequented  one 
tailoring  establishment  for  half  a  century.  He  had 
his  hair  trimmed  by  one  barber  for  nearly  two  gen 
erations.  He  loved  Washington  Street,  in  Boston,  as 
Dr.  Johnson  did  Fleet  Street,  in  London,  and  strolled 
along  its  pavements  with  serene  enjoyment,  indiffer 
ent  to  newer  thoroughfares.  He  always  shaved 
himself.  He  always  blacked  his  own  boots.  On 
these  points  he  was  extremely  particular — and  on 
one  other,  viz.,  the  quality  of  his  linen  ;  which  he 
insisted  should  be  absolutely  free  from  cotton  and 
cobweb  fine. 

Thus  loving  the  old,  while  preaching  the  new  ; 
rooted  after  the  flesh  in  the  past,  while  soaring  in 
spirit  into  the  future  ;  moving  like  a  moss-back  along 
the  grooves  of  custom,  while  pleading  for  a  recon 
struction  of  the  whole  social  order  :  Wendell  Phil 
lips  was  an  embodied  contradiction  ; — an  animated 
antithesis,  himself  more  epigrammatic  than  the  most 
striking  phrase  he  ever  coined. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  515 

In  fact,  there  are  traces  of  this  personal  conserva 
tism  even  in  his  radicalism  :  as  when  in  denouncing 
a  bad  government  he  was  careful  not  to  denounce  all 
government  ;  or  when  in  condemning  Pro-Slavery 
churches,  he  upheld  Christianity  ;  or  when  in  de 
manding  women's  rights,  he  defended  marriage  as 
Christ  taught  it  and  as  Christians  have  practised  it. 
Radical  though  he  was,  he  was  not  an  anarchist,  nor 
an  atheist,  nor  a  free-lover. 

Moreover,  as  he  combined  radicalism  and  conserv 
atism  in  himself,  so  he  was  a  singular  compound  of 
strength  and  gentleness,  impetuosity  and  calmness, 
stoicism  and  feeling.  It  was  like  fire  under  snow. 
The  same  contrast  marked  his  manners,  which  were 
at  once  patrician  and  democratic  ,  not  arrogant, 
still  less  obtrusively  affable  ;  but  tinctured  by  a  dig 
nified  yet  kindly  reserve  which  commanded  some 
measure  of  deference  from  all  who  came  in  contact 
with  him. 

There  was  a  marked  resemblance  between  his 
public  and  private  bearing — the  same  easy  grace, 
the  same  unaffected  simplicity,  the  same  honeyed 
cadence  of  tone.  One  got  a  just  idea  of  his  oratory 
from  his  carriage  and  utterance  on  the  sidewalk  or 
at  the  hearthstone.  This  charm  of  manner,  together 
with  his  wealth  of  knowledge,  made  him  the  most 
instructive  and  delightful  of  companions — when  he 
would  talk.  Because,  as  a  rule,  he  preferred  to 
listen  ;  which  he  explained  by  saying  : 

"  I  learn  something  from  every  one." 

In  his  dress  the  orator  was  simple  but  neat,  and 
near  enough  to  the  mode  not  to  appear  singular. 
He  had  the  enviable  faculty,  often  commented  upon, 
of  never  having  his  garments  appear  either  shabby 


$l6  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

or  new.  Indeed,  he  showed  his  exquisite  refinement 
in  his  clothing  as  in  everything  else.  It  was  all-per 
vading.  As  no  one  ever  heard  him  say  a  coarse 
thing  or  tell  an  indelicate  story,  so  he  was  never 
seen  in  a  "  loud  "  cravat  or  an  ultra  coat. 

From  first  to  last  Mr.  Phillips  was  an  unshaken 
believer  in  the  people.  His  republicanism  was  based 
on  an  indestructible  faith  in  the  average  capacity 
and  trustworthiness  of  the  race.  He  held,  with  John 
Bright,  that  the  first  five  hundred  men  who  pass  in 
the  Strand  would  make  as  good  a  parliament  as  that 
which  sits  at  St.  Stephen's.  He  believed  with  his 
favorite  Rochefoucauld  that  all  are  wiser  than  any. 
He  had  the  feeling,  which  in  his  case  was  a  passion, 
that  responsibility  will  educate  the  lowest  into  self- 
control,  and  thorough  self-control  into  fitness  for 
popular  government.  Hence  his  pleas  for  the 
negroes,  for  the  Irishmen,  for  the  laborer,  and  for 
woman.  He  loved  to  quote  those  words  which 
the  younger  D'  Israeli  puts  into  the  mouth  of  one  of 
his  heroes  in  "  Vivian  Grey  :"  '  The  people,  Mr. 
Grey,  are  not  often  wrong."  Not  that  Mr.  Phillips 
esteemed  the  sentiment  of  a  given  community  at  a 
given  time  to  be  correct.  His  life  of  ceaseless  oppo 
sition  to  the  popular  opinion  proves  this.  He  be 
lieved  in  men  not  in  esse,  but  in  posse — in  the  divine 
possibilities  wrapped  up  in  human  nature.  His 
whole  career  is  a  magnificent  commentary  on  this 
faith. 

Yet  if  others  doubt  this  truth,  he  of  all  men  might 
have  doubted — he,  whose  life  was  lived  under  the 
frown  of  public  opinion  ;  he,  whose  chosen  function 
was  battle  with  an  ignorant  majority  ;  he,  whose 
most  sacred  ideats  were  crucified  amid  the  execra- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

tions  of  the  mob.  Just  the  same  he  went  serenely 
on,  and  appealed  from  Philip  drunk  to  Philip  sober 
— from  the  people  ill-informed  to  the  people  better 
informed  ;  and  was  sure  that  to-morrow  would 
rectify  to-day. 

"  But,"  remarks  Mr.  George  William  Curtis, 
"  while  he  cherished  this  profound  faith  in  the  peo 
ple,  and  because  he  cherished  it,  he  never  flattered 
the  mob,  nor  hung-  upon  its  neck,  nor  pandered  to 
its  passion,  nor  suffered  its  foaming  hate  or  its  exul 
tant  enthusiasm  to  touch  the  calm  poise  of  his  reg 
nant  soul. ' '  Whether  the  cro  vvd  hissed  or  applauded, 
he  stood  their  friend  and  teacher.  His  confidence  in 
their  ultimate  position  did  not  intermit.  How  else 
could  he  have  been  their  Tribune  ? 

Here  his  example  is  beyond  praise.  At  a  time 
when  educated  men  too  often  borrow  their  tone  from 
London  and  Berlin  ;  when  it  is  fashionable  to  hem 
and  haw  over  universal  suffrage  ;  when  quid  mines 
suggest,  if  they  do  not  assert  that  the  Fathers  were 
wrong  when  they  built  the  Republic  upon  the  rock 
of  popular  sovereignty  ; — it  is  refreshing,  it  is  in 
spiring  to  come  face  to  face  with  his  unqualified  faith 
in  the  wisdom  and  durability  of  the  American  idea. 

As  he  believed  in  the  American  idea,  so  he  be 
lieved  in  the  American  method  of  reform.  "  I 
know,"  said  he,  "  what  reform  needs  and  all  it  needs 
in  a  land  where  discussion  is  free,  the  press  untram 
melled,  and  where  public  halls  protect  debate.  Sub 
mit  to  risk  your  daily  bread,  expect  social  ostracism, 
count  on  a  mob  now  and  then,  '  be  in  earnest,  don't 
equivocate,  don't  excuse,  don't  retreat  a  single  inch,' 
and  you  will  be  finally  heard."  In  this  country 
thought  is  more  explosive  than  dynamite,  unfettered 


5l8  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

lips  are  better  than  secret  societies,  the  ballot  is 
surer  than  the  bayonet — such  was  his  political  creed. 
Thus  his  career  is  a  grand  object-lesson,  teaching 
the  efficacy  of  constitutional  agitation. 

It  is  not  easy  to  estimate  his  influence.  The  diffi 
culty  is  due  to  his  exceptional  position.  In  weighing 
the  character  of  a  statesman,  for  instance,  we  might 
refer  to  the  public  measures  he  introduced  or  advo 
cated,  the  treaties  he  negotiated,  the  party  he  led. 
In  measuring  a  great  lawyer  it  would  be  easy  to 
catalogue  the  famous  cases  he  argued,  to  paint  the 
juries  he  mesmerized  into  submission,  to  indicate 
the  laws  he  wrote  or  expounded.  Or  in  character 
izing  an  inventor,  the  service  he  rendered  could  be 
distinctly  named  and  traced  in  all  its  helpful  rami 
fications.  But  this  man  stood  alone.  He  had  no 
party.  He  belonged  to  no  church. 

In  an  important  sense,  however,  this  very  isola 
tion  increased  his  influence.  Belonging  nowhere, 
he  belonged  everywhere.  He  won  early  recognition 
as  a  continental  censor.  He  was  the  public  prose 
cutor  for  humanity.  Standing  for  half  a  century  the 
most  prominent  figure  on  the  platform  ;  speaking 
incessantly,  and  always  to  large  audiences,  he  cer 
tainly  did  more  than  any  other  individual  to  create 
the  public  sentiment  which  by  and  by  seized  the 
hand  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  wrote  the  proclama 
tion  of  emancipation.  In  those  years,  and  since,  he 
was  a  tireless  seed-planter.  Through  the  afternoon 
and  evening  of  his  life  he  was  in  close  touch  with 
clergymen,  editors,  teachers,  statesmen — the  creators 
of  public  opinion  :  a  leader  of  the  leaders. 

He  was  such  a  consummate  master  of  the  art  of 
putting  things  that  his  mere  statement  was  argu- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  519 

ment.  He  gave  to  the  causes  he  espoused  a  stand 
ing-  in  the  court  of  intellect  and  scholarship — which 
they  usually  sadly  needed.  Thus  he  made  first  Abo 
lition,  and  then  Woman's  Rights,  and  then  Total 
Abstinence,  and  then  Labor  Reform,  each  in  its  turn 
a  hated  and  outcast  name,  respectable  and  respected 
in  a  social  and  mental  and  learned  sense  by  identifj^ 
ing  himself  with  them  and  flinging  over  their  discus 
sion  the  graces  of  his  genius.  The  large  result  of 
his  labors  is  triumphantly  avouched  and  everywhere 
acknowledged  in  so  far  as  his  Anti-Slavery  record 
is  concerned. 

"  Let  no  one  despise  the  negro  any  more,"  ex 
claimed  a  distinguished  man  of  letters  after  hearing 
the  orator,  "  he  has  given  us  Wendell  Phillips  !" 

Naturally,  he  is  the  hero  of  the  colored  people. 
He  stands  first,  and  there  is  no  second,  in  the  affec 
tion  of  the  educated  among  the  race  he  did  so  much 
to  lift.  "  He  knew  this  class  better/'  remarks  Rob 
ert  Purvis  (a  magnificent  specimen  of  it),  "  than  any 
one  else,  and  sympathized  more  keenly  with  its 
aspirations.  With  us  his  name  is  sainted  and  his 
words  are  law." 

Critics  allege  in  disparagement  of  Mr.  Phillips's 
influence  that  he  made  no  disciples  and  left  no  fol 
lowers.  This  is  only  apparently  true.  He  never 
aimed  at  personal  aggrandizement.  He  was  a  re 
former — not  a  politician  ;  a  propounder  of  truth — 
not  a  stereotyper  of  it  into  statutes.  Such  a  func 
tion  was  inconsistent  with  immediate  popularity. 
On  principle,  he  kept  a  quarter  of  a  century  ahead. 
Hence,  the  times  had  and  have  to  grow  up  to  him. 
But  while  his  views  have  seldom  been  adopted  in 
their  length  and  breadth,  they  have  infected  and  in- 


520  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

creasingly  dominated  the  mind  of  the  country.  He 
had  and  has  the  secret  intellectual  support  of  the 
educated  classes.  In  life  he  won  the  hearts  of  young- 
men, — especially  in  seats  of  learning,  who,  when  he 
was  announced  to  speak,  crowded  the  hall,  and 
could  not  be  kept  away  by  any  device  of  old-fogy- 
ism.  This  ascendency  he  is  likely  to  keep. 

Another  criticism  touches  the  Agitator's  use  of 
invective.  But  if  he  wore  the  thunder-robe,  it  was 
a  stern  sense  of  duty  that  impelled  him  to  put  it  on. 
In  an  age  when  the  public  conscience  was  asleep,  it 
was  his  function  to  startle  and  alarm.  His  denunci 
ation  in  such  circumstances  was  true  kindness — the 
kindness  of  the  surgeon  who  cuts  to  cure.  There 
was  never  any  malice  in  the  blow  he  struck,  any 
envy  in  the  shaft  he  sped. 

The  personalities  of  Mr.  Phillips  were  born  of 
moral  indignation,  in  part  ;  and  in  part  they  were 
the  result  of  circumstances.  When  he  began  to  dis 
cuss  slavery  there  was  a  conspiracy  of  silence.  Men 
said  :  "  You  shall  not  talk  on  this  subject."  When 
he  insisted  upon  speaking,  the  conspiracy  of  silence 
became  a  conspiracy  of  deafness.  Men  said  :  "  Very 
well,  talk  on  ;  but  our  ears  are  our  own.  We  will 
not  hear  you."  Slavery  hid  itself  behind  lawyers, 
and  said  :  4<  I  am  legal  !"  behind  merchants,  and 
said  :  "  I  am  respectable  !"  behind  statesmen,  and 
said  :  '  I  am  patriotic  !"  behind  clergymen,  and 
said  :  "I  am  religious  !"  It  could  only  be  assailed 
through  these  men.  Nor  would  the  community 
listen  to  a  mere  ethical  discussion.  Hence  Phillips 
struck  at  slavery  through  its  defenders.  The  howl 
of  some  wounded  popular  idol  forced  attention. 
Himself  the  calmest  and  sweetest  of  men,  the  Agita- 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  521 

tor  used  invective  as  a  weapon.  It  used  to  be  said 
that  he  never  slew  an  antagonist  but  with  a  sun 
beam.  And  it  has  been  conceded  that  most  of  his 
criticisms  of  public  men  history  justifies. 

Complaint  is  made  that  after  the  abolition  of 
slavery  Mr.  Phillips  continued  to  use  the  same  ter 
rible  weapon, — that  sunstroke  is  as  fatal  as  knife  or 
pistol.  The  answer  is  easy.  Are  not  the  lords  of 
the  loom  as  objectionable  as  were  the  lords  of  the 
lash  ?  Ought  not  the  makers  of  drunkards  to  be 
pilloried  in  the  contempt  of  the  community  ?  Legree 
on  the  plantation  is  not  more  hateful  than  Legree  in 
the  counting-room.  A  doctor  of  divinity  screening 
slavery  is  no  more  monstrous  than  a  doctor  of 
divinity  defending  grog-.sellers.  If  men  do  not  want 
to  be  stigmatized  they  must  not  act  basely.  Deco 
rous  rascals  can  be  frightened  into  decency  even 
when  they  are  bad  at  heart.  Exposure  has  terrors 
that  deter  from  evil.  Thus  invective  is  a  whip  and 
a  spur.  It  was  necessary  yesterday,  and  is  useful 
to-day.  Welcome  the  man  who  is  an  embodied  Day 
of  Judgment. 

It  has  been  charged  that  Mr.  Phillips  showed  a 
failure  of  judgment  in  his  later  years.  The  same 
charge  was  brought  against  his  earlier  judgment 
until  success  crowned  it.  Perhaps  it  is  only  because 
he  is  still  ahead  that  his  judgment  is  again  im 
peached.  When  the  agitation  of  Temperance,  Home 
Rule,  Labor  and  Capital,  the  Treatment  of  the  In 
sane,  Woman's  Rights,  Finance,  Municipal  Misgov- 
ernment,  the  Indian  Question,  Oppressed  National 
ities,  the  Corruption  of  Parties,  Chinese  Enfranchise 
ment  (eleven  reforms  which  he  discussed  for  years) 
shall  be  finally  closed,  it  is  more  than  probable  that, 


522  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

like  "  Abou  Ben  Adhem's  name,"  in  Leigh  Hunt's 
poem,  Wendell  Phillips  will  again  head  the  list  of 
benefactors.  "  Let  those  who  say  he  did  not  under 
stand  Labor  and  Capital,"  cries  Joseph  Cook,  "  wait 
fifty  years,  until  Macaulay's  Huns  and  Vandals  ap 
pear  on  this  continent,  and  then  ask  whether  Wen 
dell  Phillips  understood  the  necessities  of  the  case." 
In  certain  features,  Phillips  strikingly  resembled 
Milton.  This  which  the  brilliant  essayist  wrote  of 
the  poet  would  equally  fit  the  orator  : 

"  He  pressed  into  the  forlorn  hope.  When  his  opinion  seemed 
likely  to  prevail  he  passed  on  to  other  subjects.  There  is  no 
more  hazardous  enterprise  than  that  of  bearing  the  torch  of 
truth  into  those  dark  and  infected  recesses  in  which  no  light  has 
ever  shone.  But  it  was  his  choice  and  pleasure  to  penetrate  the 
noisome  vapors  and  to  brave  the  terrible  explosion.  Those  who 
most  disapprove  of  his  opinions  must  respect  the  hardihood  with 
which  he  maintained  them.  He,  in  general,  left  to  others  the 
credit  of  expounding  and  defending  the  popular  parts  of  his 
creed.  He  took  his  stand  upon  those  which  the  great  body  of 
his  countrymen  reprobated  as  criminal  or  derided  as  paradoxi 
cal.  His  radiant  and  beneficent  career  resembled  that  of  the 
god  of  light  and  fertility." 

No  ;  we  have  no  apologies  to  make  for  Wendell 
Phillips.  What,  did  he  never  err  ?  He  did  :  he  was 
human.  But  his  mistakes,  as  in  his  estimate  of  Lin 
coln,  of  Johnson,  of  Grant,  were  in  judgment,  never 
in  conduct.  His  errors  concerned  men  and  measures, 
not  ethics.  His  life  was  governed  by  a  divine  polar 
ity.  His  twin  maxims  were  justice  and  love.  They 
held  him  true, — and  will  any  man,  until  God  abdi 
cates.  Hence, 

-  nothing  is  here  for  tears, 

No  weakness,  no  contempt,  dispraise,  nor  blame  ; 
Nothing  but  well  and  fair." 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  523 

In  the  life  of  St.  Bernard  by  Gregory  the  Great 
(historian  worthy  of  his  hero),  it  is  related  that  at 
the  hour  when  holy  hymns  exhale  from  the  cloister 
in  the  midst  of  silence  and  darkness,  the  man  of 
God  was  gazing  heavenward  through  the  grated 
window  of  his  cell.  Suddenly  there  shone  round 
about  him  a  dazzling  light  in  which  every  form  of 
beauty  that  could  bewitch  the  senses,  every  subtle 
temptation  that  could  fascinate  the  mind,  every 
allurement  that  could  damn  the  soul,  floated  before 
his  eyes  as  though  gathered  to  a  focus  in  one  ray  of 
sunshine.  "  He  saw  it,"  says  the  inscription,  which 
may  still  be  read  in  the  tower  upon  Monte  Casino 
where  he  dwelt,  "and  scorned  it."  Wendell  Phil 
lips  had  two  similar  visions  and  made  two  similar 
answers.  The  first  was  in  his  youth,  when  the 
sirens  came  and  sang  their  seductions  to  him,  offer 
ing  him  the  world  and  the  glory  of  it,  if  he  would 
forswear  philanthropy.  The  second  came  in  his 
prime.  The  war  was  ended.  Slavery  was  dead. 
His  name  was  on  all  lips.  His  reputation  as  the 
orator  of  the  successful  cause  was  cosmopolitan. 
He  might  have  been  the  most  popular  and  courted 
of  Americans.  The  Governorship  of  his  native  State, 
a  seat  in  the  lower  House  of  Congress,  the  Senator- 
ship— any  honor  was  within  his  easy  reach.  In  such 
circumstances,  his  continued  choice  of  hated  causes, 
his  rigid  application  of  his  principles  to  the  reforms 
that  were  still  unwon,  his  dedication  of  his  powers 
and  his  ripe  experience  to  the  service  not  of  one  race 
alone,  but  of  humanity,  his  deliberate  rejection  of 
the  crown  and  acceptance  of  the  cross, — was  the 
grandest  reach  of  his  career  ;  grander  than  that  early 
self-surrender,  because  this  was  made  at  an  age 


524  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

when  he  had  full  knowledge  of  the  meaning  and 
value  of  all  he  forfeited.  From  that  hour,  instead  of 
falling  off,  his  character  and  influence  took  on  new 
grandeur. 

The  record  is  made, — so  far,  at  least,  as  to  fix  his 
name  and  fame  "  'twixt  Orion  and  the  Pleiades.' 
We  may  say  of  him  as-  Grattan  said  of  Fox  :   "  You 
must  measure  such  a  mind  by  parallels  of  latitude.' 
Nay,  we  may  apply  to  him  his  own  words  spoker 
over  Garrison's  coffin  :   "  Serene,   fearless,  marvel 
lous  man  !  mortal,  with  so  few  shortcomings  !" 

He  will  not  be  replaced.  When  Dr.  Johnson  died, 
Gerard  Hamilton  exclaimed  :  "  Johnson  is  dead. 
Let  us  go  to  the  next  best  ;  nobody  can  be  said  to 
put  you  in  mind  of  Johnson."  So  we  cry  :  Phillips 
is  dead.  We  go  to  the  next  best ;  THERE  is  NO 
OTHER  WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 


VII. 

PHILLIPSIANA. 

WE  throw  together  in  this  chapter  a  few  sayings, 
stories,  and  epigrams  of  Mr.  Phillips.  He  was  a 
great  utterer  of  such  sentences,  and  the  collection 
might  easily  be  swelled  into  a  volume.  But  the  lack 
of  space  enforces  brevity. 

Men  cry  out  against  sentiment  as  though  it  were  weakness. 
But  what  is  Bunker  Hill  Monument  ?  Sentiment  !  Why  did 
Massachusetts  send  the  bust  of  Sam  Adams  to  stand  in  the 
Rotunda  at  Washington  ?  Sentiment  !  This  is  the  strongest 
element  in  the  strongest  character.  A  package  was  found 
among  the  papers  of  Dean  Swift — that  old,  fierce  hater,  his  soul 
full  of  gall,  who  faced  England  in  her  maddest  hour  and  de 
feated  her  with  his  pen  charged  with  lightning  hotter  than 
Junius's.  Wrapped  up  among  his  choicest  treasures  was  found 
a  lock  of  hair.  "  Only  a  woman's  hair,"  was  the  motto.  Deep 
down  in  that  heart  full  of  strength  and  fury,  there  lay  this  foun 
tain  of  sentiment,  calming  and  shaping  all  that  character.  Nel 
son  on  the  broad  sea,  a  thousand  miles  off,  signalled,  "  England 
expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty."  What  was  that?  Senti 
ment.  It  made  a  hero  of  every  sailor.  Yes,  it  made  every  sailor 
a  Nelson.  Caesar,  crossing  the  Alps,  drew  his  whole  army  aside 
to  spare  a  tree. 

We  circumnavigate  the  globe  to  find  men  to  teach  us.  We 
tempt  Agassiz  from  his  birthplace  to  question  nature  for  her 
secrets.  Save  the  teachers  God  has  put  in  our  streets— teachers 
of  law,  order,  justice,  freedom,  brotherhood,  self-sacrifice,  the 
nobleness  of  that  life  which  serves  men,  and  the  happiness  of 
his  death  who  leaves  the  world  better  for  his  having  lived. 


526  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Genius  can  mould  no  marble  so  speaking  as  the  spot  where  a 
brave  man  stood  or  the  scene  where  he  labored. 


Some  men  say  the  Old  South  Church  is  ugly.  I  should  he 
ashamed  to  know  whether  it  is  ugly  or  handsome.  Does  a  man 
love  his  mother  because  she  is  handsome  ?  Could  any  man  say 
whether  his  mother  was  ugly  ?  Must  we  remodel  Sam  Adarrs 
on  a  Chesterfield  pattern  ?  Would  you  scuttle  the  Mayflower  if 
you  found  her  Dutch  in  build  ? 


Knowledge  does  not  fortify  a  man  against  crime.  It  does  not 
create  character.  You  can  educate  the  brain  so  as  to  make  it 
despise  violence — only  to  fall  more  in  love  with  cheating.  Whcit 
is  called  civilization  drives  away  the  tiger,  but  breeds  the  fox. 


A  certain  man  spent  all  his  money  on  a  house.  Some  one 
asked  him  to  contribute  to  build  an  insane  asylum.  "  Gracious  !  ' 
cried  he,  "  I  have  built  one  already." 


I  lectured  one  night  in  a  New  England  town  on  "  The  Lost 
Arts,"  When  I  finished  a  lady  said  : 

"  I  was  interested  in  the  lecture,  but  it  didn't  seem  to  have 
much  relation  to  the  origin  of  law." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  madam  ?"  I  asked. 

"Why,"  said  she,  "weren't  you  to  lecture  on'  The  Law 
Starts  '  ? "  

Here  are  four  lines  from  an  old  song  which  workingmen  ought 
to  commit  to  memory  and  ponder  : 

"  My  lord  rides  out  at  the  castle  gate, 
My  lady  is  grand  in  bower  and  hall, 
With  men  and  maidens  to  cringe  and  wait : 
But  John  o1  the  smithy  pays  for  all. 


A  politician  is  a  man  who  lives  by  whispering  at  Washington 
what  he  wouldn't  for  all  the  world  have  known  at  home,  and 
whispering  at  home  what  he  wouldn't  for  all  the  world  have 
known  in  Washington,  and  who  is  politically  dead  the  moment 
he  is  equally  well  known  in  both  places. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  527 

I  once  spent  the  night  with  a  clergyman,  an  old  friend,  who 
had  the  habit  of  reading  his  sermons.  I  asked  him  why  he  did 
so.  He  went  on  to  give  me  the  reasons,  and  became  animated. 
"Well,"  said  I,  "I  am  tired  to-night,  but  I  have  been  very 
much  interested  in  what  you  said.  Nevertheless,  if  you  had 
readyvur  remarks  I  should  have  gone  to  sleep." 


Would  any  young  enthusiast  on  fire  for  a  new  reform  be  crazy 
enough  to  go  to  State  Street,  Beacon  Street,  or  Harvard  College 
for  countenance  ?  If  so,  he  must  be.  very  young,  and  will  soon 
learn  better. 

I  passed  the  other  day  one  of  our  city  churches  which  has  on 
it  authentic  likenesses  of  the  apostles  not  in  it. 


Luther,  Calvin,  Wesley,  show  that  no  man  can  be  faithful  to 
the  truth  in  his  pulpit  or  on  the  platform  and  be  popular  in  his 
own  generation. 

The  English  Constitution  comes  down  to  us  through  the  ages 
not  by  the  steps  of  logical  deduction,  but  by  transmigration,  like 
that  of  Eastern  mythology,  through  martyrs  and  patriots. 


Some  people's  idea  of  agitation  is  like  the  clown  in  the  classic 
play,  two  thousand  years  ago,  who  seeing  a  man  bring  down 
with  an  arrow  an  eagle  floating  in  the  blue  ether  above,  said  : 
"  You  needn't  have  wasted  that  arrow — the  fall  would  have 
killed  him  !" 

Keep  your  prejudices  in  favor  of  justice  and  liberty.  "  Get  rid 
of  this  prejudice,"  said  David  Hume  to  his  Christian  mother. 
"  My  son,"  was  her  reply,  "  can  you  show  me  anything  better  ?" 


When  I  was  asked,  the  other  day,  how  it  happened  there  was 
so  much  learning  at  Cambridge,  I  answered  :  "  Because  nobody 
carries  any  away." 

A  number  of  years  ago  a  poor  man,  whose  case,  for  some 
reason  or  for  no  reason  skilfully  presented,  had  excited  a  good 
deal  of  sympathy  among  Boston  philanthropists,  conceived  the 


528'  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

idea  of  having  an  entertainment  given  for  his  benefit,  and  pre 
vailed  upon  the  Rev.  William  R  Alger  and  myself  to  give  him 
what  would  be  known  in  theatrical  circles  as  a  benefit.  The 
affair  was  very  well  advertised,  men  being  even  employed  to 
cirry  placards  about  town,  a  means  of  advertising  more  novel 
then  than  now,  and  it  was  expected  that  Music  Hall,  the  place 
chosen  for  the  exercises,  would  be  crowded.  But  from  some 
cause  or  other,  the  weather,  rival  attractions,  or  what  not,  the 
patronage  was  so  light  that  the  amount  received  for  the  tickets 
was  not  sufficient  to  pay  the  expenses.  On  the  day  following 
the  lecture  I  received  a  call  from  the  beneficiary,  who  informed 
me  that  the  expenses  were  $20  more  than  the  receipts,  and.  just 
as  I  opened  my  lips  to  express  regrets,  the  visitor  added  coolly  : 
"  I  suppose  that,  of  course,  you  and  Mr.  Alger  will  be  responsi 
ble  for  the  balance." 

Opinion  is  not  truth,  but  only  truth  filtered  through  the  stand 
point,  the  disposition,  or  the  mood  of  the  spectator. 


In  the  old  Anti-Slavery  days  I  lectured  in  Cincinnati.  At  the 
same  time  there  was  a  convention  of  ministers  in  session.  The 
next  morning  I  took  the  cars,  seating  myself  quite  near  the  door. 
The  car  was  full  of  white  cravats,  so  that  it  looked  like  an  ad 
journed  session  of  the  convention.  Presently,  a  sleek,  well-fed 
man  bustled  on  to  the  platform,  and  addressing  the  brakeman, 
asked  : 

"  Is  Mr.  Phillips  on  board  ?" 

"  Yes,"  was  the  reply  "  there  he  sits  back  of  the  door." 

The  man  came  into  the  car — he  was  evidently  a  clergyman 
In  a  loud  voice  he  cried,  pointing  his  finger  at  me  : 

"  Are  you  Mr.  Phillips  ?" 

"  I  am,  sir." 

"  Are  you  trying  to  free  the  niggers  ?" 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  am  an  Abolitionist." 

"  Well,  why  do  you  preach  your  doctrines  up  here  ?  Why 
don't  you  go  there  ?"  pointing  toward  Kentucky,  just  across  the 
Ohio  River. 

44  Excuse  me,"  said  I,  "  are  you  a  preacher  ?" 

"  I  am,  sir." 

"  Are  you  trying  to  save  souls  from  hell  ?" 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  529 

"  Yes,  sir,  that  is  my  business." 

"  Well,  why  don  t you  go  there?" 

There  was  a  roar,  and  my  critic  vanished  in  the  next  car. 


Men  marvel  at  the  uprising  which  hurled  slavery  to  the  dust. 
It  was  young  men  who  dreamed  dreams  over  patriot  graves — 
enthusiasts  wrapped  in  memories  !  Marble,  gold,  and  granite 
are  not  real  :  the  only  reality  is  an  idea. 


My  advice  to  workingmen  is  this  : 

If  you  want  power  in  this  country  ;  if  you  want  to  make  your 
selves  felt  ;  if  you  do  not  want  your  children  to  wait  long  years 
before  they  have  the  bread  on  the  table  they  ought  to  have,  the 
leisure  in  their  lives  they  ought  to  have,  the  opportunities  in  life 
they  ought  to  have  ;  if  you  don't  want  to  wait  yourselves,—  write 
on  your  banner,  so  that  every  political  trimmer  can  read  it,  so 
that  every  politician,  no  matter  how  short-sighted  he  may  be  can 
read  it,  "  We  never  forget  !  If  you  launch  the  arrow  of  sarcasm 
at  labor,  we  never  forget ;  if  there  is  a  division  in  Congress,  and 
you  throw  your  vote  in  the  wrong  scale,  we  never  forget  !  You 
may  go  down  on  your  knees,  and  say,  '  I  am  sorry  I  did  the 
act  ;'  and  we  will  say,  '  It  will  avail  you  in  heaven,  but  on  this 
side  of  the  grave,  never.'  "  So  that  a  man,  in  taking  up  the 
labor  question,  will  know  he  is  dealing  with  a  hair-trigger  pistol, 
and  will  say,  "  I  am  to  be  true  to  justice  and  to  man  :  otherwise 
I  am  a  dead  duck." 

Hung  Fung  was  a  Chinese  philosopher  well-nigh  a  hundred 
years  old.  The  Emperor  once  said  to  him  : 

"  Hung,  ninety  years  of  study  and  observation  must  have  made 
yo  i  wise.     Tell  me,  what  is  the  great  danger  of  a  government  ?" 

"  Well,"  quoth  Hung,  "  it's  the  rat  in  the  statue." 

"  The  rat  in  the  statue  !"  repeated  the  Emperor.  "  What  do 
you  mean  ?" 

"  Why,"  retorted  Hung,  "  you  know  we  build  statues  to  the 
memory  of  our  ancestors.  They  are  made  of  wood,  and  are 
hollow  and  painted.  Now,  if  a  rat  gets  into  one  you  can't  smoke 
it  out — it's  the  image  of  your  father.  You  can't  plunge  it  into 
the  water — that  wouM  wash  off  the  paint.  So  the  rat  is  safe 
because  the  image  is  sacred." 


530  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

May  23,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND  :  I  read  your  remarks  on  cremation  with 
hearty  interest.  They  were  very  happily  put,  and  struck  me  as 
fresh  and  original  to  a  remarkable  degree,  for  when  every  one 
is  talking  it  is  hard  to  put  the  topic  in  a  new  light. 

It  is  years  since  I've  read  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  "  Urn  Burial," 
but  I  fancy  there  might  be  some  flowers  culled  thence  for  use  in 
this  new  discussion.  Did  you  quote  him  ? 

Thank  you  for  a  sight  of  your  utterances.  Make  my  kindest 
compliments  to  your  wife,  to  whom  I  send  the  best  and  latest 
photograph  of  Sumner,  as  a  sly  means  of  getting  mine  in  along 
with  and  under  cover  of  it. 

Yours  cordially, 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS.' 

Rev.  Carlos  Martyn. 


1  See  opposite  page  for  fac-simile  of  Mr.  Phillips's  penmanship,, 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  53! 


APPENDIX. 


THE  LOST  ARTS.1 


LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  : 

I  am  to  talk  to  you  to-night  about  "  The  Lost  Arts," — a  lec 
ture  which  has  grown  under  my  hand  year  atter  year,  and  which 
belongs  to  that  first  phase  of  the  lyceum  system,  before  it  under 
took  to  meddle  with  political  duties  or  dangerous  and  angry 
questions  of  ethics  ;  when  it  was  merely  an  academic  institu 
tion,  trying  to  win  busy  men  back  to  books,  teaching  a  little 
science,  or  repeating  some  tale  of  foreign  travel,  or  painting 
some  great  representative  character,  the  symbol  of  his  age.  I 
think  I  can  claim  a  purpose  beyond  a  moment's  amusement  in 
this  glance  at  early  civilization. 

I,  perhaps,  might  venture  to  claim  that  it  was  a  medicine  for 
what  is  the  most  objectionable  feature  of  our  national  char 
acter  ;  and  that  is  self-conceit, — an  undue  appreciation  of  our 
selves,  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  our  achievements,  of  our 
inventions,  of  our  contributions  to  popular  comfort,  and  of  our 
place,  in  fact,  in  the  great  procession  of  the  ages.  We  seem  to 
imagine,  that  whether  knowledge  will  die  with  us,  or  not,  it  cer 
tainly  began  with  us.  We  have  a  pitying  estimate,  a  tender 
compassion,  for  the  narrowness,  ignorance,  and  darkness  of  the 
bygone  ages.  We  seem  to  ourselves  not  only  to  monopolize, 
but  to  have  begun,  the  era  of  light.  In  other  words,  we  are  all 
running  over  with  a  fourth-day-of-July  spirit  of  self-content.  I 
am  often  reminded  of  the  German  whom  the  English  poet  Cole- 


1  This  lecture  was  never  revised  by  Mr.  Phillips,  and  is  imperfect 
in  form  and  expression.    But  it  is  the  best  report  in  existence. 


S34  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ridge  met  at  Frankfort.  He  always  took  off  his  hat  with  pro 
found  respect  when  he  ventured  to  speak  of  himself.  It  seems 
to  me,  the  American  people  might  be  painted  in  the  chronic 
attitude  of  taking  off  its  hat  to  itself  ;  and  therefore  it  can  be  no 
waste  of  time,  with  an  audience  in  such  a  mood,  to  take  their 
eyes  fora  moment  from  the  present  civilization,  and  guide  them 
back  to  that  earliest  possible  era  that  history  describes  for  us, 
if  it  were  only  for  the  purpose  of  asking  whether  we  boast  on 
the  right  line.  I  might  despair  of  curing  the  habit  of  boasting, 
but  I  might  direct  it  better  ! 

Well,  I  have  been  somewhat  criticised,  year  after  year,  for 
this  endeavor  to  open  up  the  claims  of  old  times.  1  have  been 
charged  with  repeating  useless  fables  with  no  foundation.  Take 
the  subject  of  glass.  This  material,  Pliny  says,  was  discovered 
by  accident.  Some  sailors,  landing  on  the  eastern  coast  of 
Spain,  took  their  cooking  utensils,  and  supported  them  on  the 
sand  by  the  stones  that  they  found  in  the  neighborhood  :  they 
kindled  their  fire,  cooked  the  fish,  finished  the  meal,  and  re 
moved  the  apparatus  ;  and  glass  was  found  to  have  resulted 
from  the  nitre  and  sea-sand,  vitrified  by  the  heat.  Well,  I  have 
been  a  dozen  times  criticised  by  a  number  of  wise  men,  in  news 
papers,  who  have  said  that  this  was  a  very  idle  tale,  that  there 
never  was  sufficient  heat  in  a  few  bundles  of  sticks  to  produce 
vitrification,— glass-making.  I  happened,  two  years  ago,  to 
meet,  on  the  prairies  of  Missouri,  Professor 'Shepherd,  of  Yale 
College.  I  mentioned  this  criticism  to  him.  "  Well,"  said  he, 
"  a  little  practical  life  would  have  freed  men  from  that  doubt." 
He  went  on  :  "  We  stopped  last  year  in  Mexico,  to  cook  some 
venison.  We  got  down  from  our  saddles,  and  put  the  cooking 
apparatus  on  stones  we  found  there  ;  made  our  fire  with  the 
wood  we  got  there,  resembling  ebony  ;  and  when  we  removed 
the  apparatus  there  was  pure  silver  gotten  out  of  the  embers  by 
the  intense  heat  of  that  almost  iron  wood.  Now,"  said  he, 
"  that  heat  was  greater  than  any  necessary  to  vitrify  the  mate 
rials  of  glass."  Why  not  suppose  that  Pliny's  sailors  had  lighted 
on  some  exceedingly  hard  wood  ?  May  it  not  be  as  possible  as 
in  this  case  ? 

So,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  with  a  growing  habit  of  distrust  of 
a  large  share  of  this  modern  and  exceedingly  scientific  criticism 
of  ancient  records,  I  think  we  have  been  betraying  our  own 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  535 

ignonnce,  and  that  frequently,  when  the  statement  does  not 
look,  on  the  face  of  it,  to  be  exactly  accurate,  a  little  investiga 
tion  below  the  surface  will  show  that  it  rests  on  a  real  truth. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  English  proverb,  which  was  often  quoted 
in  my  college  days.  We  used  to  think  how  little  logic  the  com 
mon  people  had  ;  and  when  we  wanted  to  illustrate  this  in  the 
school-room, — it  was  what  was  called  a  non  sequitur :  the 
effect  did  not  come  from  the  cause  named, — we  always  quoted 
the  English  proverb,  "  Tenterden  steeple  is  the  cause  of  Good 
win  Sands."  We  said,  "How  ignorant  a  population!"  But, 
when  we  went  deeper  into  the  history,  we  found  that  the  proverb 
was  not  meant  for  logic,  but  was  meant  for  sarcasm.  One  of 
the  bishops  had  fifty  thousand  pounds  given  to  him,  to  build  a 
breakwater  to  save  the  Goodwin  Sands  from  the  advancing  sea  ; 
but  the  good  bishop,  instead  of  building  the  breakwater  to  keep 
out  the  sea,  simply  built  a  steeple  ;  and  this  proverb  was  sar 
castic,  and  not  logical,  that  "  Tenterden  steeple  was  the  cause 
of  the  Goodwin  Sands."  When  you  contemplate  the  motive, 
there  was  the  closest  and  best-welded  logic  in  the  proverb.  So 
I  think  a  large  share  of  our  criticism  of  old  legends  and  old 
statements  will  be  found  in  the  end  to  be  the  ignorance  that 
overleaps  its  own  saddle,  and  falls  on  the  other  side. 

Before  I  proceed  to  talk  of  these  lost  arts,  I  ought  in  fairness  to 
make  an  exception.  Over  a  very  large  section  of  literature, 
there  is  a  singular  contradiction  to  this  swelling  conceit.  There 
are  certain  lines  in  which  the  moderns  are  ill  satisfied  with  them 
selves,  and  contented  to  acknowledge  that  they  ought  fairly  to 
sit  down  at  the  feet  of  their  predecessors.  Take  poetry,  paint 
ing,  sculpture,  architecture,  the  drama,  and  almost  everything 
in  works  of  any  form  that  relates  to  beauty, — with  regard  to  that 
whole  sweep,  the  modern  world  gilds  it  with  its  admiration. 
Take  the  very  phrases  that  we  use.  The  artist  says  he  wishes 
to  go  to  Rome.  "For  what?"  "To  study  the  masters." 
Well,  all  the  masters  have  been  in  their  graves  several  hundred 
years.  We  are  all  pupils.  You  teil  the  poet,  "  Sir,  that  line  of 
yours  would  remind  one  of  Homer,"  and  he  is  delighted.  Stand 
in  front  of  a  painting,  in  the  hearing  of  the  artist,  and  compare 
its  coloring  to  that  of  Titian  or  Raphael,  and  he  remembers  you 
forever.  I  recollect  once  standing  in  front  of  a  bit  of  marble 
carved  by  Powers,  a  Vermonter,  who  had  a  matchless,  instinc- 


536  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

tive  love  of  art,  and  perception  of  beauty.  I  said  to  an  Italian 
standing  with  me,  "  Well,  now,  that  seems  to  me  to  be  perfec 
tion."  The  answer  was,  "To  be  perfection," — shrugging  his 
shoulders, — "why,  sir,  that  reminds  you  of  Phidias  !"  as  if  to 
remind  you  of  that  Greek  was  a  greater  compliment  than  to  be 
perfection. 

Well,  now,  the  very  choice  of  phrases  betrays  a  confession  of 
inferiority  ;  and  you  see  it  again  crops  out  in  the  amount  we 
borrow.  Take  the  whole  range  of  imaginative  literature,  and 
we  are  all  wholesale  borrowers.  In  every  matter  that  relates  to 
invention,  to  use,  or  beauty,  or  form,  we  are  borrowers. 

You  may  glance  around  the  furniture  of  the  palaces  in  Europe, 
and  you  may  gather  all  these  utensils  of  art  or  use  ;  and,  when 
you  have  fixed  the  shape  and  forms  in  your  mind,  I  will  take 
you  into  the  museum  of  Naples,  which  holds  the  remains  of  the 
domestic  life  of  the  Romans,  and  you  shall  not  find  a  single  one 
of  these  modern  forms  of  art  or  beauty  or  use,  that  was  not 
anticipated  there.  We  have  hardly  added  one  single  line  of 
beauty  to  the  antique. 

Take  the  stories  of  Shakespeare,  who  has,  perhaps,  written 
his  forty-odd  plays.  Some  are  historical.  The  rest,  two  thirds 
of  them,  he  did  not  stop  to  invent,  but  he  found  them.  These 
he  clutched,  ready  made  to  his  hand,  from  the  Italian  novelists, 
who  had  taken  them  before  from  the  East.  Cinderella  and  her 
slipper  is  older  than  all  history,  like  half  a  dozen  other  baby 
legends.  The  annals  of  the  world  do  not  go  back  far  enough  to 
tell  us  their  origin. 

All  the  boys'  plays,  like  everything  that  amuses  the  child  in 
the  open  air,  are  Asiatic.  Rawlinson  will  show  you  that  they 
came  somewhere  from  the  banks  of  the  Ganges  or  the  suburbs 
of  Damascus.  Bulwer  borrowed  the  incidents  of  his  Roman 
stories  from  legends  of  a  thousand  years  before.  Indeed,  Dun- 
lop,  who  has  grouped  the  history  of  the  novels  of  all  Europe 
into  one  essay,  says  that  in  the  nations  of  modern  Europe  there 
have  been  two  hundred  and  fifty  or  three  hundred  distinct 
stories.  He  says  at  least  two  hundred  of  these  may  be  traced, 
before  Christianity,  to  the  other  side  of  the  Black  Sea.  If  this 
were  my  topic,  I  might  tell  you  that  even  our  newspaper-jokes 
are  enjoying  a  very  respectable  old  age.  Take  Maria  Edge- 
worth's  essay  on  Irish  bulls  and  the  laughable  mistakes  of  the 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  537 

Irish.  The  tale  which  either  Maria  Edgeworth  or  her  father 
thought  the  best  is  that  famous  story  of  a  man  writing  a  letter 
as  follows  :  "  My  dear  friend,  I  would  write  you  in  detail,  more 
minutely,  if  there  was  not  an  impudent  fellow  looking  over  my 
shoulder,  reading  every  word."  ("No,  you  lie  :  I've  not  read 
a  word  you  have  written  !")  This  is  an  Irish  bull,  still  it  is  a 
very  old  one.  It  is  only  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  older  than 
the  New  Testament.  Horace  Walpole  dissented  from  Richard 
Loveli  Edgeworth,  and  thought  the  other  Irish  bull  was  the  best, 
— of  the  man  who  said,  "  I  would  have  been  a  very  handsome 
man,  but  they  changed  me  in  the  cradle."  That  comes  from 
Don  Quixote,  and  is  Spanish  ;  but  Cervantes  borrowed  it  from 
the  Greek  in  the  fourth  century,  and  the  Greek  stole  it  from  the 
Egyptian  hundreds  of  years  back. 

There  is  one  story  which  it  is  said  Washington  has  related,  of 
a  man  who  went  into  an  inn,  and  asked  for  a  glass  of  drink 
from  the  landlord,  who  pushed  forward  a  wineglass  about  half 
the  usual  size  (the  teacups  also  in  that  day  were  not  more  than 
half  the  present  size).  The  landlord  said,  "  That  glass  out  of 
which  you  are  drinking  is  forty  years  old." — "  Well,"  said  the 
thirsty  traveller,  contemplating  its  diminutive  proportions,  "  I 
think  it  is  the  smallest  thing  of  its  age  I  ever  saw."  That  story 
as  told  is  given  as  a  story  of  Athens  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  years  before  Christ  was  born.  Why  !  all  these  Irish  bulls 
are  Greek, — every  one  of  them.  Take  the  Irishman  who  carried 
around  a  brick  as  a  specimen  of  the  house  he  had  to  sell  ;  take 
the  Irishman  who  shut  his  eyes,  and  looked  into  the  glass  to  see 
how  he  would  look  when  he  was  dead  ;  take  the  Irishman  that 
bought  a  crow,  alleging  that  crows  were  reported  to'live  two 
hundred  years,  and  he  meant  to  set  out  and  try  it  ;  take  the 
Irishman  who  met  a  friend  who  said  to  him,  "  Why,  sir,  I  heard 
you  were  dead." — "  Well,"  says  the  man,  "  I  suppose  you  see 
I'm  not." — "  Oh,  no  !"  says  he,  "  I  would  believe  the  man  who 
told  me  a  good  deal  quicker  than  I  would  you."  Well,  those 
are  all  Greek.  A  score  or  more  of  them,  of  the  parallel  char 
acter,  come  from  Athens. 

Our  old  Boston  patriots  felt  that  tarring  and  feathering  a 
Tory  was  a  genuine  patent  Yankee  firebrand, — Yankeeism. 
They  little  imagined  that  when  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  set  out 
on  one  of  his  crusades,  among  the  orders  he  issued  to  his  camp 


538  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

of  soldiers  was,  that  any  one  who  robbed  a  hen-roost  should  be 
tarred  and  feathered.  Many  a  man  who  lived  in  Connecticut 
has  repeated  the  story  of  taking  children  to  the  limits  of  the 
town,  and  giving  them  a  sound  thrashing  to  enforce  their  memory 
of  the  spot.  But  the  Burgundians  in  France,  in  a  statute  now 
eleven  hundred  years  old,  attributed  valor  to  the  East  of  France 
because  it  had  a  law  that  the  children  should  be  taken  to  the 
limits  of  the  district,  and  there  soundly  whipped,  in  order  that 
they  might  forever  remember  the  boundary-line. 

So  we  have  very  few  new  things  in  that  line.  But  I  said  I 
would  take  the  subject  of  glass.  It  is  the  very  best  expression 
of  man's  self-conceit. 

I  had  heard  that  nothing  had  been  observed  in  ancient  times 
which  could  be  called  by  the  name  of  glass, — that  there  had 
been  merely  attempts  to  imitate  it.  I  thought  they  had  proved 
the  proposition  :  they  certainly  had  elaborated  it.  In  Pompeii, 
a  dozen  miles  south  of  Naples,  which  was  covered  with  ashes  by 
Vesuvius  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  they  broke  into  a  room 
full  of  glass  :  there  was  ground  glass,  window-glass,  cut-glass, 
and  colored  glass  of  every  variety.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  glass- 
maker's  factory.  So  the  lie  and  the  refutation  came  face  to 
face.  It  was  like  a  pamphlet  printed  in  London,  in  1836,  by  Dr. 
Lardner,  which  proved  that  a  steamboat  could  not  cross  the 
ocean  ;  and  the  book  came  to  this  country  in  the  first  steamboat 
that  came  across  the  Atlantic. 

The  chemistry  of  the  most  ancient  period  had  reached  a  point 
which  we  have  never  even  approached,  and  which  we  in  vain 
struggle  to  reach  to-day.  Indeed,  the  whole  management  of 
the  effect  of  light  on  glass  is  still  a  matter  of  profound  study. 
The  first  two  stories  which  I  have  to  offer  you  are  simply  stories 
from  history. 

The  first  is  from  the  letters  of  the  Catholic  priests  who  broke 
into  China,  which  were  published  in  France  some  two  hundred 
years  ago.  They  were  shown  a  glass,  transparent  and  color 
less,  which  was  filled  with  a  liquor  made  by  the  Chinese,  that 
was  shown  to  the  observers,  and  appeared  to  be  colorless  like 
water.  This  liquor  was  poured  into  the  glass,  and  then,  look 
ing  through  it,  it  seemed  to  be  filled  with  fishes.  They  turned 
this  out,  and  repeated  the  experiment,  and  again  it  was  filled 
with  fishes.  The  Chinese  confessed  that  they  did  not  make 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  539 

them  ;  that  they  were  the  plunder  of  some  foreign  conquest. 
This  is  not  a  singular  thing  in  Chinese  history  ;  for  in  some  of 
their  scientific  discoveries  we  have  found  evidence  that  they  did 
not  make  them,  but  stole  them. 

The  second  story,  of  half  a  dozen,  relates  to  the  age  of 
Tiberius,  the  time  of  St.  Paul  ;  and  tells  of  a  Roman  who  had 
been  banished,  and  who  returned  to  Rome,  bringing  a  wonder 
ful  cup.  This  cup  he  dashed  upon  the  marble  pavement,  and 
it  was  crushed,  not  broken,  by  the  fall.  It  was  dented  some, 
and  with  a  hammer  he  easily  brought  it  into  shape  again. 
It  was  brilliant,  transparent,  but  not  brittle.  I  once  made 
this  statement  in  New  Haven  ;  and  among  the  audience 
was  Professor  Silliman.  He  was  kind  enough  to  come  to 
the  platform  when  I  had  ended,  and  say  that  he  was  familiar 
with  most  of  my  facts,  but,  speaking  of  malleable  glass,  he 
had  this  to  say, — that  it  was  nearly  a  natural  impossibility, 
and  that  no  amount  of  evidence  which  could  be  brought  would 
make  him  credit  it.  We'l,  the  Romans  got  their  chemistry  from 
the  Arabians  ;  they  brought  it  into  Spain  eight  centuries  ago, 
and  in  their  books  of  that  age  they  claim  that  they  got  from  the 
Arabians  malleable  glass.  There  is  a  kind  of  glass  spoken  of 
there,  that,  if  supported  by  one  end,  by  its  own  weight  in  twenty 
hours  would  dwindle  down  to  a  fine  line,  and  that  you  could 
curve  around  your  wrist.  Von  Beust,  the  Chancellor  of  Austria, 
has  ordered  secrecy  in  Hungary  in  regard  to  a  recently  dis 
covered  process  by  which  glass  can  be  used  exactly  like  wool, 
and  manufactured  into  cloth. 

These  are  a  few  records.  When  you  go  to  Rome,  they  will 
show  you  a  bit  of  glass  like  the  solid  rim  of  this  tumbler, — trans 
parent  glass,  a  solid  thing,  which  they  lift  up  so  as  to  show  you 
that  there  is  nothing  concealed  ;  but  in  the  centre  of  the  glass 
is  a  drop  of  colored  glass,  perhaps  as  large  as  a  pea.  mottled 
like  a  duck,  finely  mottled,  with  the  shifting  colored  hues  of  the 
neck,  and  which  even  a  miniature  pencil  could  not  do  more  per 
fectly.  It  is  manifest  that  this  drop  of  liquid  glass  must  have 
been  poured,  because  there  is  no  joint.  This  must  have  been 
done  by  a  greater  heat  than  the  annealing  process,  because  that 
process  shows  breaks. 

The  imitation  of  gems  has  deceived  not  only  the  lay  people, 
but  the  connoisseurs.  Some  of  these  imitations  in  later  years 


540  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

have  been  discovered.  The  celebrated  vase  of  the  Genoa  Cathe 
dral  was  considered  a  solid  emerald.  The  Roman  Catholic 
legend  of  it  was,  that  it  was  one  of  the  treasures  that  the  Queen 
of  Sheba  gave  to  Solomon,  and  that  it  was  the  identical  cup  out 
of  which  the  Saviour  drank  at  the  Last  Supper.  Columbus 
must  have  admired  it.  It  was  venerable  in  his  day  ;  it  was 
death  for  anybody  to  touch  it  but  a  Catholic  priest.  And  when 
Napoleon  besieged  Genoa,  the  Jews  offered  to  loan  the  Senate 
three  million  dollars  on  that  single  article  as  security.  Napo 
leon  took  it,  and  carried  it  to  France,  and  gave  it  to  the  Insti 
tute.  Somewhat  reluctantly  the  scholars  said,  "  It  is  not  a 
stone  :  we  hardly  know  what  it  is." 

Cicero  said  that  he  had  seen  the  entire  "  Iliad,"  which  is  a  poem 
as  large  as  the  New  Testament,  written  on  a  skin  so  thin  that  it 
could  be  rolled  up  in  the  compass  of  a  nut-shell.  Now,  this  is 
imperceptible  to  the  ordinary  eye.  You  have  seen  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  in  the  compass  of  a  quarter  of  a  dollar, 
written  with  glasses.  I  have  to-day  a  paper  at  home,  as  long  as 
half  my  hand,  on  which  was  photographed  the  whole  contents  of 
a  London  newspaper.  It  was  put  under  a  dove's  wing,  and  sent 
into  Paris,  where  they  enlarged  it,  and  read  the  news.  This 
copy  of  the  ' '  Iliad' '  must  have  been  made  by  some  such  process. 

In  the  Roman  theatre, — the  Coliseum,  which  could  seat  a 
hundred  thousand  people, — the  emperor's  box,  raised  to  the 
highest  tier,  bore  about  the  same  proportion  to  the  space  as 
this  stand  does  to  this  hall  ;  and  to  look  down  to  the  centre  of  a 
six-acre  lot,  was  to  look  a  considerable  distance.  ("  Consider 
able,"  by  the  way,  is  not  a  Yankee  word.  Lord  Chesterfield 
uses  it  in  his  letters  to  his  son,  so  it  has  a  good  English  origin.) 
Pliny  says  that  Nero  the  tyrant  had  a  ring  with  a  gem  in  it, 
which  he  looked  through,  and  watched  the  sword-play  of  the 
gladiators, — men  who  killed  each  other  to  amuse  the  people, — 
more  clearly  than  with  the  naked  eye.  So  Nero  had  an  opera- 
glass. 

Mauritius  the  Sicilian  stood  on  the  promontory  of  his  island, 
and  could  sweep  over  the  entire  sea  to  the  coast  of  Africa  with 
his  nauscopite,  which  is  a  word  derived  from  two  Greek  words, 
meaning  "  to  see  a  ship."  Evidently  Mauritius,  who  was  a 
pirate,  had  a  marine  telescope. 

You  may  visit  Dr.  Abbot's  museum,  where  you  will  see  the 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  541 

ring  of  Cheops.  Bunsen  puts  him  five  hundred  years  before 
Christ.  The  signet  of  the  ring  is  about  the  size  of  a  quarter  of 
a  dollar,  and  the  engraving  is  invisible  without  the  aid  of  glasses. 
No  man  was  ever  shown  into  the  cabinets  of  gems  in  Italy  with 
out  being  furnished  with  a  microscope  to  look  at  them.  It 
would  be  idle  for  him  to  look  at  them  without  one.  He  couldn't 
appreciate  the  delicate  lines  and  the  expression  of  the  faces.  If 
you  go  to  Parma,  they  will  show  you  a  gem  once  worn  on  the 
finger  of  Michael  Angelo,  of  which  the  engraving  is  two  thou 
sand  years  old,  on  which  there  are  the  figures  of  seven  women. 
You  must  have  the  aid  of  a  glass  in  order  to  distinguish  the 
forms  at  all.  I  have  a  friend  who  has  a  ring,  perhaps  three- 
quarters  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  on  it  is  the  naked  figure  of 
the  god  Hercules.  By  the  aid  of  glasses  you  can  distinguish 
the  interlacing  muscles,  and  count  every  separate  hair  on  the 
eyebrows.  Layard  says  he  would  be  unable  to  read  the  en 
gravings  at  Nineveh  without  strong  spectacles,  they  are  so  ex 
tremely  small.  Rawlinson  brought  home  a  stone  about  twenty 
inches  long  and  ten  wide,  containing  an  entire  treatise  on  mathe 
matics.  It  would  be  perfectly  illegible  without  glasses.  Now, 
if  we  are  unable  to  read  it  without  the  aid  of  glasses,  you  may 
suppose  the  man  who  engraved  it  had  pretty  strong  spectacles. 
So  the  microscope,  instead  of  dating  from  our  time,  finds  its 
brothers  in  the  books  of  Moses, — and  these  are  infant  brothers. 
So  if  you  take  colors.  Color  is,  we  say,  an  embellishment. 
We  dye  our  dresses,  and  ornament  our  furniture.  It  is  a  luxury 
to  gratify  the  eye.  But  the  Egyptians  impressed  it  into  a  new 
service.  For  them,  it  was  a  method  of  recording  history. 
Some  parts  of  their  history  were  written  ;  but  when  they  wanted 
to  elaborate  history  they  painted  it.  Their  colors  are  immortal, 
else  we  could  not  know  of  it.  We  find  upon  the  stucco  of  their 
walls  their  kings  holding  court,  their  armies  marching  out,  their 
craftsmen  in  the  ship-yard,  with  the  ships  floating  in  the  dock  ; 
and,  in  fact,  we  trace  all  their  rites  and  customs  painted  in 
undying  colors.  The  French  who  went  to  Egypt  with  Napoleon 
said  that  all  the  colors  were  perfect  except  the  greenish-white, 
which  is  the  hardest  for  us.  They  had  no  difficulty  with  the 
Tyrian  purple.  The  buried  city  of  Pompeii  was  a  city  of 
stucco.  All  the  houses  are  stucco  outside,  and  it  is  stained 
with  Tyrian  purple, — the  royal  color  of  antiquity. 


542  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

But  you  cannot  rely  on  the  name  of  a  color  after  a  thousand 
years.  So  the  Tyrian  purple  is  almost  a  red, — about  the  color 
of  these  curtains.  This  is  a  city  of  all  red.  It  had  been  buried 
seventeen  hundred  years  ;  and  if  you  take  a  shovel  now,  and 
clear  away  the  ashes,  this  color  flames  up  upon  you,  a  great 
deal  richer  than  anything  we  can  produce.  You  can  go  down 
into  the  narrow  vault  which  Nero  built  as  a  retreat  from  the 
great  heat,  and  you  will  find  the  walls  painted  all  over  with  fanci 
ful  designs  in  arabesque,  which  have  been  buried  beneath  the 
earth  fifteen  hundred  years  ;  but  when  the  peasants  light  it  up 
with  their  torches,  the  colors  flash  out  before  you  as  fresh  as 
they  were  in  the  days  of  St.  Paul.  Our  fellow-citizen  Mr.  Page 
spent  twelve  years  in  Venice,  studying  Titian's  method  of  mix 
ing  his  colors,  and  he  thinks  he  has  got  it.  Yet  come  down 
from  Titian,  whose  colors  are  wonderfully  and  perfectly  fresh, 
to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  and  although  his  colors  are  not  yet  a 
hundred  years  old,  they  are  fading  :  the  colors  on  his  lips  are 
dying  out,  and  the  cheeks  are  losing  their  tints.  He  did  not 
know  how  to  mix  well.  All  this  mastery  of  color  is  as  yet  un 
equalled.  If  you  should  go  with  that  most  delightful  of  all  lec 
turers,  Professor  Tyndall,  he  would  show  you  in  the  spectrum 
the  vanishing  rays  of  violet,  and  prove  to  you  that  beyond  their 
limit  there  are  rays  still  more  delicate,  and  to  you  invisible,  but 
which  he,  by  chemical  paper,  will  make  visible  ;  and  he  will  tell 
you  that  probably,  though  you  see  three  or  four  inches  more 
than  three  hundred  years  ago  your  predecessors  did,  yet  three 
hundred  years  after  our  successors  will  surpass  our  limit.  The 
French  have  a  theory  that  there  is  a  certain  delicate  shade  of 
blue  that  Europeans  cannot  see.  In  one  of  his  lectures  to  his 
students,  Ruskin  opened  his  Catholic  mass-book,  and  said, 
"  Gentlemen,  we  are  the  best  chemists  in  the  world.  No  Eng 
lishman  ever  could  doubt  that.  But  we  cannot  make  such  a 
scarlet  as  that  ;  and  even  if  we  could,  it  would  not  last  for 
twenty  years.  Yet  this  is  five  hundred  years  old  !"  The 
Frenchman  says,  "  I  am  the  best  dyer  in  Europe  :  nobody  can 
equal  me,  and  nobody  can  surpass  Lyons."  Yet  in  Cashmere, 
where  the  girls  make  shawls  worth  thirty  thousand  dollars,  they 
will  show  him  three  hundred  distinct  colors,  which  he  not  only 
cannot  make,  but  cannot  even  distinguish.  When  I  was  in 
Rome,  if  a  lady  wished  to  wear  a  half  dozen  colors  at  a  mas- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  543 

querade,  and  have  them  all  in  harmony,  she  would  go  to  the 
Jews  ;  for  the  Oriental  eye  is  better  than  even  those  of  France 
or  Italy,  of  which  we  think  so  highly. 

Taking  the  metals.  The  Bible  in  its  first  chapters  shows  that 
man  first  conquered  metals  there  in  Asia  ;  and  on  that  spot 
to-day  he  can  work  more  wonders  with  those  metals  than  we 
can. 

One  of  the  surprises  that  the  European  artists  received,  when 
the  English  plundered  the  summer  palace  of  the  King  of  China, 
was  the  curiously  wrought  metal  vessels  of  every  kind,  far  ex 
ceeding  all  the  boasted  skill  of  the  workmen  of  Europe. 

Mr.  Colton  of  the  Boston  Journal,  the  first  week  he  landed  in 
Asia,  found  that  his  chronometer  was  out  of  order,  from  the 
steel  of  the  works  having  become  rusted.  The  London  Medical 
and  Surgical  Journal  advises  surgeons  not  to  venture  to  carry 
any  lancets  to  Calcutta, — to  have  them  gilded,  because  English 
steel  could  not  bear  the  atmosphere  of  India.  Yet  the  Damas 
cus  blades  of  the  Crusades  were  not  gilded,  and  they  are  as  per 
fect  as  they  were  eight  centuries  ago.  There  was  one  at  the 
London  Exhibition,  the  point  of  which  could  be  made  to  touch 
the  hilt,  and  which  could  be  put  into  a  scabbard  like  a  cork 
screw,  and  bent  every  way  without  breaking,  like  an  American 
politician.  Now,  the  wonder  of  this  is,  that  perfect  steel  is  a 
marvel  of  science.  If  a  London  chronometer-maker  wants  the 
best  steel  to  use  in  his  chronometer,  he  does  not  send  to  Shef 
field,  the  centre  of  all  science,  but  to  the  Punjaub,  the  empire  of 
the  seven  rivers,  where  there  is  no  science  at  all.  The  first 
needle  ever  made  in  England  was  made  in  the  time  of  Henry 
the  Eighth,  and  made  by  a  negro  ;  and  when  he  died,  the  art 
died  with  him.  Some  of  the  first  travellers  in  Africa  stated 
that  they  found  a  tribe  in  the  interior  who  gave  them  better 
razors  than  they  had  ;  the  irrepressible  negro  coming  up  in 
science  as  in  politics.  The  best  steel  is  the  greatest  triumph  of 
metallurgy,  and  metallurgy  is  the  glory  of  chemistry. 

The  poets  have  celebrated  the  perfection  of  the  Oriental  steel  ; 
and  it  is  recognized  as  the  finest  by  Moore,  Byron,  Scott, 
Southey,  and  many  others.  I  have  even  heard  a  young  advocate 
of  the  lost  arts  find  an  argument  in  Byron's  "Sennacherib," 
from  the  fact  that  the  mail  of  the  warriors  in  that  one  short 
night  had  rusted  before  the  trembling  Jews  stole  out  in  the 


544  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

morning  to  behold  the  terrible  work  of  the  Lord.  Scott,  in  his 
"  Tales  of  the  Crusaders," — for  Sir  Walter  was  curious  in  his 
love  of  the  lost  arts, — describes  a  meeting  between  Richard 
Cceur  de  Lion  and  Saladin.  Saladin  asks  Richard  to  show  him 
the  wonderful  strength  for  which  he  is  famous,  and  the  Norman 
monarch  responds  by  severing  a  bar  of  iron  which  lies  on  the 
floor  of  his  tent.  Saladin  say,  "  I  cannot  do  that ;"  but  he 
takes  an  eider-down  pillow  from  the  sofa,  and,  drawing  his  keen 
blade  across  it,  it  falls  in  two  pieces.  Richard  says,  "  This  is 
the  black  art  ;  it  is  magic  ;  it  is  the  devil  :  you  cannot  cut  that 
which  has  no  resistance  ;"  and  Saladin,  to  show  him  that  such 
is  not  the  case,  takes  a  scarf  from  his  shoulders,  which  is  so 
light  that  it  almost  floats  in  the  air,  and,  tossing  it  up,  severs  it 
before  it  can  descend.  George  Thompson  told  me  he  saw  a 
man  in  Calcutta  throw  a  handful  of  floss-silk  into  the  air,  and  a 
Hindoo  sever  it  into  pieces  with  his  sabre.  We  can  produce 
nothing  like  this. 

Considering  their  employment  of  the  mechanical  forces,  and 
their  movement  of  large  masses  from  the  earth,  we  know  that 
the  Egyptians  had  the  five,  seven,  or  three  mechanical  powers  j 
but  we  cannot  account  for  the  multiplication  and  increase  neces 
sary  to  perform  the  wonders  they  accomplished. 

In  Boston,  lately,  we  have  moved  the  Pelham  Hotel,  weigh 
ing  fifty  thousand  tons,  fourteen  feet,  and  are  very  proud  of  it  ; 
and  since  then  we  have  moved  a  whole  block  of  houses  twenty- 
three  feet,  and  I  have  no  doubt  we  will  write  a  book  about  it  : 
but  there  is  a  book  telling  how  Domenico  Fontana  of  the  six 
teenth  century  set  up  the  Egyptian  obelisk  at  Rome  on  end,  in 
the  Papacy  of  Sixtus  V.  Wonderful  !  Yet  the  Egyptians  quar 
ried  that  stone,  and  carried  it  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  the 
Romans  brought  it  seven  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  never 
said  a  word  about  it.  Mr.  Batterson  of  Hartford,  walking  with 
Brunei,  the  architect  of  the  Thames  tunnel,  in  Egypt,  asked 
him  what  he  thought  of  the  mechanical  power  of  the  Egyptians  ; 
and  he  said,  "  There  is  Pompey's  Pillar  :  it  is  an  hundred  feet 
high,  and  the  capital  weighs  two  thousand  pounds.  It  is  some 
thing  of  a  feat  to  hang  two  thousand  pounds  at  that  height  in 
the  air,  and  the  few  men  that  can  do  it  would  better  discuss 
Egyptian  mechanics." 

Take  canals.     The  Suez  canal  absorbs  half  its  receipts  in  clean* 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  545 

ing  out  the  sand  which  fills  it  continually,  and  it  is  not  yet  known 
whether  it  is  a  pecuniary  success.  The  ancients  built  a  canal 
at  right  angles  to  ours  ;  because  they  knew  it  would  not  fill  up 
if  built  in  that  direction,  and  they  knew  such  an  one  as  ours 
would.  There  were  magnificent  canals  in  the  land  of  the  Jews, 
with  perfectly  arranged  gates  and  sluices.  We  have  only  just 
begun  to  understand  ventilation  properly  for  our  houses  ;  yet 
late  experiments  at  the  Pyramids  in  Egypt  show  that  those 
Egyptian  tombs  were  ventilated  in  the  most  perfect  and  scien 
tific  manner. 

Again,  cement  is  modern,  for  the  ancients  dressed  and  joined 
their  stones  so  closely,  that,  in  buildings  thousands  of  years  old, 
the  thin  blade  of  a  penknife  cannot  be  forced  between  them. 
The  railroad  dates  back  to  Egypt.  Arago  has  claimed  that  they 
had  a  knowledge  of  steam.  A  painting  has  been  discovered  of 
a  ship  full  of  machinery,  and  a  French  engineer  said  that  the 
arrangement  of  this  machinery  could  only  be  accounted  for  by 
supposing  the  motive  power  to  have  been  steam.  Bramah 
acknowledges  that  he  took  the  idea  of  his  celebrated  lock  from 
an  ancient  Egyptian  pattern.  De  Tocqueville  says  there  was 
no  social  question  that  was  not  discussed  to  rags'  in  Egypt. 

"Well,"  say  you,  "Franklin  invented  the  lightning-rod." 
I  have  no  doubt  he  did  ;  but  years  before  his  invention,  and 
before  muskets  were  invented,  the  old  soldiers  on  guard  on  the 
lowers  used  Franklin's  invention  to  keep  guard  with  ;  and  if  a 
spark  passed  between  them  and  the  spear-head,  they  ran  and 
bore  the  warning  of  the  state  and  condition  of  affairs.  After 
that  you  will  admit  that  Benjamin  Franklin  was  not  the  only 
one  that  knew  of  the  presence  of  electricity,  and  the  advantages 
derived  from  its  use.  Solomon's  Temple,  you  will  find,  was 
situated  on  an  exposed  point  of  the  hill  :  the  temple  was  so  lofty 
that  it  was  often  in  peril,  and  was  guarded  by  a  system  exactly 
like  that  of  Benjamin  Franklin. 

Well,  I  may  tell  you  a  little  of  ancient  manufactures.  The 
Duchess  of  Burgundy  took  a  necklace  from  the  neck  of  a 
mummy,  and  wore  it  to  a  ball  given  at  the  Tuileries  ;  and 
everybody  said  they  thought  it  was  the  newest  thing  there.  A 
Hindoo  princess  came  into  court  ;  and  her  father,  seeing  her, 
said,  "Go  home,  you  are  not  decently  covered, — go  home;" 
and  she  said,  "  Father,  I  have  seven  suits  on  ;"  but  the  suits 


546  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

were  of  muslin,  so  thin  that  the  king  could  see  through  them. 
A  Roman  poet  says,  "  The  girl  was  in  the  poetic  dress  of  the 
country."  I  fancy  the  French  would  be  rather  astonished  at 
this.  Four  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  the  first  spinning 
machine  was  introduced  into  Europe.  I  have  evidence  to  show 
that  it  made  its  appearance  two  thousand  years  before. 

Why  have  I  groped  among  these  ashes  ?  I  have  told  you 
these  facts  to  show  you  that  we  have  not  invented  everything — 
that  we  do  not  monopolize  the  encyclopaedia.  The  past  had 
knowledge.  But  it  was  the  knowledge  of  the  classes,  not  of  the 
masses.  "  The  beauty  that  was  Greece  and  the  grandeur'that 
was  Rome"  were  exclusive,  the  possession  of  the  few.  The 
science  of  Egypt  was  amazing  :  but  it  meant  privilege — the 
privilege  of  the  king  and  the  priest.  It  separated  royalty  and 
priesthood  from  the  people,  and  was  the  engine  of  oppression. 
When  Cambyses  came  down  from  Persia  and  thundered  across 
Egypt  treading  out  royalty  and  priesthood,  he  trampled  out  at 
the  same  time  civilization  itself. 

Four  thousand  years  passed  before  the  people  came  into  ex 
istence.  To-day  learning  no  longer  hides  in  the  convent  or 
slumbers  in  the  palace.  No  !  she  comes  out  into  every-day  life, 
joins  hands  with  the  multitude  and  cushions  the  peasant.  Our 
astronomy  looks  at  but  does  not  dwell  in  the  stars.  It  serves 
navigation  and  helps  us  run  boundaries.  Our  chemistry  is  not 
the  secret  of  the  alchemist  striving  to  change  base  metals  into 
gold.  It  is  Liebig  with  his  hands  full  of  blessings  for  every 
farmer,  and  digging  gold  out  of  the  earth  with  the  miner's  pick 
axe.  Of  all  we  know  I  can  show  you  ninety-nine  items  out  of 
every  hundred  which  the  past  anticipated  and  which  the  world 
forgot.  Our  distinction  lies  in  the  liberty  of  intellect  and  the 
diffusion  of  knowledge. 

When  Gibbon  finished  his  history  of  Rome,  he  said  :  "  We 
have  iron  and  fire  :  the  hand  can  never  go  back  on  the  dial  of 
time."  He  made  this  boast  as  he  stood,  at  night,  amid  the  ruins 
of  the  Corsani  palace,  looking  out  on  the  churches  where  the 
monks  were  chanting. 

But  what  is  to  prevent  history  from  repeating  itself  ?  Why 
should  our  arts  not  be  lost, — our  temples  of  Jupiter  not  fall, — 
our  Rome  not  decline  ?  Will  our  possession  of  iron  and  fire 
preserve  them  ?  Before  Rome  was  peopled  nations  rose  and 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  547 

fell  with  iron  in  one  hand  and  fire  in  the  other.  Any  civilization 
that  is  exclusive,  any  arts  that  are  secret  and  individual  must 
perish. 

The  distinctive  glory  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  that  it  dis 
tributes  knowledge  ;  that  it  recognizes  the  divine  will,  which  is 
that  every  man  has  a  right  to  know  whatever  may  be  serviceable 
to  himself  or  to  his  fellows  ;  that  it  makes  the  Church,  the  school- 
house,  and  the  town  hall  its  symbols,  and  humanity  its  care. 
This  democratic  spirit  will  animate  our  arts  with  immortality, 
if  God  means  that  they  shall  last. 


DANIEL  O'CONNELL.1 


A  HUNDRED  years  ago  to-day  Daniel  O'Connell  was  born. 
The  Irish  race,  wherever  scattered  over  the  globe,  assembles 
to-night  to  pay  fitting  tribute  to  his  memory, — one  of  the  most 
eloquent  men,  one  of  the  most  devoted  patriots,  and  the  most 
successful  statesman,  which  that  race  has  given  to  history. 
We  of  other  races  may  well  join  you  in  that  tribute,  since  the 
cause  of  constitutional  government  owes  more  to  O'Connell  than 
to  any  other  political  leader  of  the  last  two  centuries.  The 
English-speaking  race,  to  find  his  equal  among  its  statesmen, 
must  pass  by  Chatham  and  Walpole,  and  go  back  to  Oliver 
Cromwell,  or  the  able  men  who  held  up  the  throne  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  If  to  put  the  civil  and  social  elements  of  your  day 
into  successful  action,  and  plant  the  seeds  of  continued  strength 
and  progress  for  coming  times,— if  this  is  to  be  a  statesman, 
then  most  emphatically  was  O'Connell  one.  To  exert  this  con 
trol,  and  secure  this  progress,  while  and  because  ample  means 
lie  ready  for  use  under  your  hand,  does  not  rob  Walpole  and 
Colbert,  Chatham  and  Richelieu,  of  their  title  to  be  considered 
statesmen.  To  do  it,  as  Martin  Luther  did,  when  one  must 
ingeniously  discover  or  invent  his  tools,  and  while  the  mightiest 
forces  that  influence  human  affairs  are  arrayed  against  him, 
that  is  what  ranks  O'Connell  with  the  few  masterly  statesmen 
the  English-speaking  race  has  ever  had.  When  Napoleon's 
soldiers  bore  the  negro  chief  Toussaint  L'Ouverture  into  exile, 
he  said,  pointing  back  to  San  Domingo,  "You  think  you  have 
rooted  up  the  tree  of  liberty,  but  I  am  only  a  branch.  I  have 
planted  the  tree  itself  so  deep  thnt  ages  will  never  root  it  up." 
And  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  social  or  industrial  condition 


1  Oration  delivered  at  the  O'Connell  Celebration  in  Boston,  August 
6th,  1870. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  549 

of  Hayti  during  the  last  seventy  years,  its  nationality  has  never 
been  successfully  assailed. 

O'Connell  is  the  only  Irishman  who  can  say  as  much  of  Ire 
land.  From  the  peace  of  Utrecht,  1713,  till  the  fall  of  Napoleon, 
Great  Britain  was  the  leading  State  in  Europe  ;  while  Ireland, 
a  comparatively  insignificant  island,  lay  at  its  feet.  She  weighed 
next  to  nothing  in  the  scale  of  British  politics.  The  Continent 
pitied,  and  England  despised  her.  O'Connell  found  her  a  mass 
of  quarrelling  races  and  sects,  divided,  dispirited,  broken 
hearted,  and  servile.  He  made  her  a  nation,  whose  first  word 
broke  in  pieces  the  iron  obstinacy  of  Wellington,  tossed  Peel 
from  the  Cabinet,  and  gave  the  government  to  the  Whigs  : 
whose  colossal  figure,  like  the  helmet  in  Walpole's  romance,  has 
filled  the  political  sky  ever  since  ;  whose  generous  aid  thrown 
into  the  scale  of  the  three  great  British  reforms, — the  ballot,  the 
corn  laws,  and  slavery,  — secured  their  success  ;  a  nation  whose 
continual  discontent  has  dragged  Great  Britain  down  to  be  a 
second-rate  power  on  the  chess-board  of  Europe.  I  know  other 
causes  have  helped  in  producing  this  result,  but  the  nationality 
which  O'Connell  created  has  been  the  main  cause  of  this  change 
in  England's  importance.  Dean  Swift,  Molyneux,  and  Henry 
Flood  thrust  Ireland  for  a  moment  into  the  arena  of  British 
politics,  a  sturdy  suppliant  clamoring  for  justice  ;  and  Grattan 
held  her  there  an  equal,  and,  as  he  thought,  a  nation,  for  a  few 
years.  But  the  unscrupulous  hand  of  William  Pitt  brushed 
away  in  an  hour  all  Grattan's  work.  Well  might  he  say  of 
the  Irish  Parliament  which  he  brought  to  life,  "  I  sat  by  its 
cradle,  I  followed  its  hearse  ;"  since  after  that  infamous  union, 
which  Byron  called  a  "  union  of  the  shark  with  its  prey,"  Ire 
land  sank  back,  plundered  and  helpless.  O'Connell  lifted  her 
to  a  fixed  and  permanent  place  in  English  affairs, — no  suppliant, 
but  a  conqueror  dictating  her  terms. 

This  is  the  proper  standpoint  from  which  to  look  at  O'Con- 
nell's  work.  This  is  the  consideration  that  ranks  him,  not  with 
founders  of  states,  like  Alexander,  Caesar,  Bismarck,  Napoleon, 
and  William  the  Silent,  but  with  men  who,  without  arms,  by 
force  of  reason,  have  revolutionized  their  times, — with  Luther, 
Jefferson,  Mazzini,  Samuel  Adams.  Garrison,  and  Franklin.  I 
know  some  men  will  sneer  at  this  claim, — those  who  have  never 
looked  at  him  except  through  the  spectacles  of  English  critics, 


550  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

who  despised  him  as  an  Irishman  and  a  Catholic,  until  they 
came  to  hate  him  as  a  conqueror.  As  Grattan  said  of  Kirwan, 
"  The  curse  of  Swift  was  upon  him,  to  have  been  born  an  Irish 
man  and  a  man  of  genius,  and  to  have  used  his  gifts  for  his 
country's  good."  Mark  what  measure  of  success  attended  the 
able  men  who  preceded  him,  in  circumstances  as  favorable  as 
his,  perhaps  even  better  ;  then  measure  him  by  comparison. 

An  island  soaked  with  the  blood  of  countless  rebellions,  op 
pression  such  as  would  turn  cowards  into  heroes,  a  race  whose 
disciplined  valor  had  been  proved  on  almost  every  battle-field  in 
Europe,  and  whose  reckless  daring  lifted  it,  any  time,  in  arms 
against  England,  with  hope  or  without — what  inspired  them  ? 
Devotion,  eloquence,  and  patriotism  seldom  paralleled  in  his 
tory.  Who  led  them  ?  Dean  Swift,  according  to  Addison 
"  the  greatest  genius  of  his  age,"  called  by  Pope  "  the  incom 
parable,"  a  man  fertile  in  resources,  of  stubborn  courage,  and 
tireless  energy,  master  of  an  English  style  unequalled,  perhaps, 
for  its  purpose  then  or  since,  a  man  who  had  twice  faced  Eng 
land  in  her  angriest  mood,  and  by  that  masterly  pen  subdued 
her  to  his  will  ;  Henry  Flood,  eloquent  even  for  an  Irishman, 
and  sagacious  as  he  was  eloquent,  the  eclipse  of  that  brilliant 
life  one  of  the  saddest  pictures  in  Irish  biography  ;  Grattan, 
with  all  the  courage,  and  more  than  the  eloquence,  of  his  race, 
a  statesman's  eye  quick  to  see  every  advantage,  boundless  de 
votion,  unspotted  integrity,  recognized  as  an  equal  by  the  world's 
leaders,  and  welcomed  by  Fox  to  the  House  of  Commons  as  the 
"  Demosthenes  of  Ireland  ;"  Emmet  in  the  field,  Sheridan  in 
the  senate,  Curran  at  the  bar  ;  and,  above  all,  Edmund  Burke, 
whose  name  makes  eulogy  superfluous,  more  than  Cicero  in  the 
senate,  almost  Plato  in  the  academy.  All  these  gave  their  lives 
to  Ireland  ;  and  when  the  present  century  opened,  where  was 
she  ?  Sold  like  a  slave  in  the  market-place  by  her  perjured 
master,  William  Pitt.  It  was  then  that  O'Connell  flung  himself 
into  the  struggle,  gave  fifty  years  to  the  service  of  his  country  ; 
and  where  is  she  to-day?  Not  only  redeemed,  but  her  indepen 
dence  put  beyond  doubt  or  peril.  Grattan  and  his  predecessors 
could  get  no  guarantees  for  what  rights  they  gained.  In  that 
sagacious,  watchful,  and  almost  omnipotent  public  opinion, 
which  O'Connell  created,  is  an  all-sufficient  guarantee  of  Ire- 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  551 

land's  future.  Look  at  her  !  almost  every  shackle  has  fallen 
from  her  limbs  :  all  that  human  wisdom  has  as  yet  devised  to 
remedy  the  evils  of  bigotry  and  misrule  has  been  done.  O'Con- 
nell  found  Ireland  a  "  hissing  and  a  byword"  in  Edinburgh  and 
London.  He  made  her  the  pivot  of  British  politics  :  she  rules 
them,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  as  absolute  a  sway  as  the  slave 
question  did  the  United  States  from  1850  to  1865.  Look  into 
Earl  Russell's  book,  and  the  history  of  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832, 
and  see  with  how  much  truth  it  may  be  claimed  that  O'Connell 
and  his  fellows  gave  Englishmen  the  ballot  under  that  act.  It 
is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  corn  laws  could  have  been  abol 
ished  without  their  aid.  In  the  Anti-Slavery  struggle  O'Connell 
stands,  in  influence  and  ability,  equal  with  the  best.  I  know  the 
credit  all  those  measures  do  to  English  leaders  ;  but,  in  my 
opinion,  the  next  generation  will  test  the  statesmanship  of  Peel, 
Palmerston,  Russell,  and  Gladstone,  almost  entirely  by  their 
conduct  of  the  Irish  question.  All  the  laurels  they  have  hitherto 
won  in  that  field  are  rooted  in  ideas  which  Grattan  and  O'Con 
nell  urged  on  reluctant  hearers  for  half  a  century.  Why  do 
Bismarck  and  Alexander  look  with  such  contemptuous  indiffer 
ence  on  every  attempt  of  England  to  mingle  in  European  affairs  ? 
Because  they  know  they  have  but  to  lift  a  finger,  and  Ireland 
stabs  her  in  the  back.  Where  was  the  statesmanship  of  English 
leaders  when  they  allowed  such  an  evil  to  grow  so  formidable  ? 
This  is  Ireland  to-day.  What  was  she  when  O'Connell  under 
took  her  cause  ?  The  saddest  of  Irish  poets  has  described  her  : 

"  O  Ireland  !  my  country,  the  hour  of  thy  pride  and  thy  splendor  hath 
passed  ; 

And  the  chain  that  was  spurned  in  thy  moments  of  power  hangs  heavy 
around  thee  at  last. 

There  are  marks  in  the  fate  of  each  clime,  there  are  turns  in  the  for 
tunes  of  men  ; 

But  the  changes  of  realms,  or  the  chances  Of  time,  shall  never  restore 
thee  again. 

"  Thou  art  chained  to  the  wheel  of  the  foe  by  links  which  a  world  can 
not  sever  : 

With  thy  tyrant  through  storm  and  through  calm  thou  shalt  go,  and 
thy  sentence  is  bondage  forever. 


552  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

Thou  art  doomed  for  the  thankless  to  toil,  thou  art  left  for  the  proud 

to  disdain  ; 

And  the  blood  of  thy  sons  and  the  wealth  of  thy  soil  shall  be  lavished 
and  lavished  in  vain. 

"  Thy  riches   with   taunts   shall  be  taken,  thy  valor  with  coldness  be 

paid  ; 
And  of  millions  who  see  thee  thus  sunk  and  forsaken,  not   one  shall 

stand  forth  in  thine  aid. 
In  the  nations   thy  place   is   left  void  ;  thou  art  lost  in  the  list  of  the 

free  ; 
Even  realms  by  the  plague  and  the  earthquake  destroyed  may  revive, 

but  no  hopa  is  for  thee." 

It  was  a  community  impoverished  by  five  centuries  of  oppres 
sion,— four  millions  of  Catholics  robbed  of  every  acre  of  their 
native  land  :  it  was  an  island  torn  by  race-hatred  and  religious 
bigotry,  her  priests  indifferent,  and  her  nobles  hopeless  or 
traitors.  The  wiliest  of  her  enemies,  a  Protestant  Irishman, 
ruled  the  British  senate  ;  the  sternest  of  her  tyrants,  a  Protes 
tant  Irishman,  led  the  armies  of  Europe.  Puritan  hate,  which 
had  grown  blinder  and  more  bitter  since  the  days  of  Cromwell, 
gave  them  weapons.  Ireland  herself  lay  bound  in  the  iron  links 
of  a  code  which  Montesquieu  said  could  have  been  "  made  only 
by  devils,  and  should  be  registered  only  in  hell."  Her  millions 
were  beyond  the  reach  of  the  great  reform  engine  of  modern 
times,  since  they  could  neither  read  nor  write. 

In  this  mass  of  ignorance,  weakness,  and  quarrel,  one  keen 
eye  saw  hidden  the  elements  of  union  and  strength.  With  rarest 
skill  he  called  them  forth,  and  marshalled  them  into  rank. 
Then  this  one  man,  without  birth,  wealth,  or  office,  in  a  land 
ruled  .by  birth,  wealth,  and  office,  moulded  from  those  unsus 
pected  elements  a  power,  which,  overawing  king,  senate,  and 
people,  wrote  his  single  will  on  the  statute-book  of  the  most 
obstinate  nation  in  Europe.  Safely  to  emancipate  the  Irish 
Catholics,  and,  in  spite  of  Saxon,  Protestant  hate,  to  lift  all  Ire 
land  to  the  level  of  British  citizenship. — this  was  the  problem 
which  statesmanship  and  patriotism  had  been  seeking  for  two 
centuries  to  solve.  For  this,  blood  had  been  poured  out  like 
water.  On  this,  the  genius  of  Swift,  the  learning  of  Molyneux, 
and  the  eloquence  of  Burhe,  Grattan,  and  Burke,  had  been 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  553 

wasted.  English  leaders  ever  since  Fox  had  studied  this  prob 
lem  anxiously.  They  saw  that  the  safety  of  the  empire  was 
compromised.  At  one  or  two  critical  moments  in  the  reign  of 
George  III.,  one  signal  from  an  Irish  leader  would  have  snapped 
the  chain  that  bound  Ireland  to  his  throne.  His  ministers  recog 
nized  it  ;  and  they  tried  every  expedient,  exhausted  every  device, 
dared  every  peril,  kept  oaths  or  broke  them,  in  order  to  suc 
ceed.  All  failed  ;  and  not  only  failed,  but  acknowledged  they 
could  see  no  way  in  which  success  could  ever  be  achieved. 

O'Connell  achieved  it.  Out  of  this  darkness  he  called  forth 
light.  Out  of  this  most  abject,  weak,  and  pitiable  of  kingdoms 
he  made  a  power  ;  and,  dying,  he  left  in  Parliament  a  spectre, 
which,  unless  appeased,  pushes  Whig  and  Tory  ministers  alike 
from  their  stools. 

But  Brougham  says  he  was  a  demagogue.  Fie  on  Wellington, 
Derby,  Peel,  Palmerston,  Liverpool,  Russell,  and  Brougham,  to 
be  fooled  and  ruled  by  a  demagogue  !  What  must  they,  the 
subjects,  be,  if  O'Connell,  their  king,  be  only  a  bigot  and  a 
demagogue  r  A  demagogue  rides  the  storm  :  he  has  never 
really  the  ability  to  create  one.  He  uses  it  narrowly,  ignorantly, 
and  for  selfish  ends.  If  not  crushed  by  the  force,  which,  with 
out  his  will,  has  flung  him  into  power,  he  leads  it  with  ridicu 
lous  miscalculation  against  some  insurmountable  obstacle  that 
scatters  it  forever.  Dying,  he  leaves  no  mark  on  the  elements 
with  which  he  has  been  mixed.  Robespierre  will  serve  for  an 
illustration.  It  took  O'Connell  thirty  years  of  patient  and  saga 
cious  labor  to  mould  elements  whose  existence  no  man,  however 
wise,  had  ever  discerned  before.  He  used  them  unselfishly, 
only  to  break  the  yoke  of  his  race.  Nearly  fifty  years  have 
passed  since  his  triumph,  but  his  impress  still  stands  forth  clear 
and  sharp  on  the  empire's  policy.  Ireland  is  wholly  indebted 
to  him  for  her  political  education.  Responsibility  educates  :  he 
lifted  her  to  broader  responsibilities.  Her  possession  of  power 
makes  it  the  keen  interest  of  other  classes  to  see  she  is  well  in 
formed.  He  associated  her  with  all  the  reform  movements  of 
Great  Britain.  This  is  the  education  of  affairs,  broader,  deeper, 
and  more  real  than  any  school  or  college  can  give.  This  and 
power,  his  gifts,  are  the  lever  which  lifts  her  to  every  other  right 
and  privilege.  How  much  England  owes  him  we  can  never 
know  ;  since  how  great  a  danger  and  curse  Ireland  would  have 


5S4  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

been  to  the  empire  had  she  continued  the  cancer  Pitt  and  Castle- 
reagh  left  her  is  a  chapter  of  history  which,  fortunately,  can 
never  be  written.  No  demagogue  ever  walked  through  the 
streets  of  Dublin  as  O'Connell  and  Grattan  did  more  than  once, 
hooted  and  mobbed  because  they  opposed  themselves  to  the 
mad  purpose  of  the  people,  and  crushed  it  by  a  stern  resistance. 
No  demagogue  would  have  offered  himself  to  a  race  like  the  Irish 
as  the  apostle  of  peace,  pledging  himself  to  the  British  Govern 
ment,  that,  in  the  long  agitation  before  him,  with  brave  millions 
behind  him  spoiling  for  a  fight,  he  would  never  draw  a  sword. 

1  have  purposely  dwelt  long  on  this  view,  because  the  extent 
and  the  far-reaching  effects  of  O'Connell's  work,  without  regard 
to  the  motives  which  inspired  him,  or  the  methods  he  used, 
have  never  been  fully  recognized. 

Briefly  stated,  he  did  what  the  ablest  and  bravest  of  his  fore 
runners  had  tried  to  do,  and  failed.  He  created  a  public  opin 
ion  and  unity  of  purpose  (no  matter  what  be  now  the  dispute 
about  methods),  which  make  Ireland  a  nation;  he  gave  her 
British  citizenship,  and  a  place  in  the  imperial  Parliament  ;  he 
gave  her  a  press  and  a  public :  with  these  tools  her  destiny  is 
in  her  own  hands.  When  the  Abolitionists  got  for  the  negro 
schools  and  the  vote,  they  settled  the  slave  question  ;  for  they 
planted  the  sure  seeds  of  civil  equality.  O'Connell  did  this  for 
Ireland, — this  which  no  Irishman  before  had  ever  dreamed  of 
attempting.  Swift  and  Moiyneux  were  able.  Grattan,  Bushe, 
Saurin,  Burrowes,  Plunket,  Curran,  Burke,  were  eloquent. 
Throughout  the  island  courage  was  a  drug  :  they  gained  now 
one  point,  and  now  another  ;  but,  after  all,  they  left  the  helm 
of  Ireland's  destiny  in  foreign  and  hostile  hands.  O'Connell 
was  brave,  sagacious,  eloquent  :  but,  more  than  all,  he  was  a 
statesman  ;  for  he  gave  to  Ireland's  own  keeping  the  key  of  her 
future.  As  Lord  Bacon  marches  down  the  centuries,  he  may 
lay  one  hand  on  the  telegraph,  and  the  other  on  the  steam- 
engine,  and  say,  "  These  arc  mine,  for  I  taught  you  how  to 
study  nature."  In  a  similar  sense,  as  shackle  after  shackle  falls 
from  Irish  limbs,  O'Connell  may  say,  "  This  victory  is  mine  ; 
for  I  taught  you  the  method,  and  I  gave  you  the  arms." 

I  have  hitherto  been  speaking  of  his  ability  and  success  :  by 
and  by  we  will  look  at  his  character,  motives,  and  methods. 
This  unique  ability,  even  his  enemies  have  been  forced  to  con- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  555 

fess.  Harriet  Martineau,  in  her  incomparable  history  of  the 
"  Thirty  Years'  Peace,"  has,  with  Tory  hate,  misconstrued 
every  action  of  O'Connell,  and  invented  a  bad  motive  for  each 
one.  But  even  she  confesses  that  "  he  rose  in  power,  influence, 
and  notoriety  to  an  eminence  such  as  no  other  individual  citizen 
has  attained  in  modern  times"  in  Great  Britain.  And  one  of  his 
by  no  means  partial  biographers  has  well  said, — 

*'  Any  man  who  turns  over  the  magazines  and  newspapers  of  that 
period  will  easily  perceive  how  grandly  O'Connell's  figure  dominated 
in  politics,  how  completely  he  had  dispelled  the  indifference  that  had 
so  long  prevailed  on  Irish  questions,  how  clearly  his  agitation  stands 
forth  as  the  great  fact  of  the  time.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  his  position,  so 
far  from  being  a  common  one,  is  absolutely  unique  in  history.  We 
may  search  in  vain  through  the  records  of  the  past  for  any  man,  who, 
without  the  effusion  of  a  drop  of  blood,  or  the  advantages  of  office  or 
rank,  succeeded  in  governing  a  people  so  absolutely  and  so  long,  and 
in  creating  so  entirely  the  elements  of  his  power.  .  .  .  There  was  no 
rival  to  his  supremacy,  there  was  no  restriction  to  his  authority.  He 
played  with  the  enthusiasm  he  had  aroused,  with  the  negligent  ease 
of  a  master  ;  he  governed  the  complicated  organization  he  had  created, 
with  a  sagacity  that  never  failed.  He  made  himself  the  focus  of  the 
attention  of  other  lands,  and  the  centre  around  which  the  rising  intel 
lect  of  his  own  revolved.  He  transformed  the  whole  social  system 
of  Ireland  ;  almost  reversed  the  relative  positions  of  Protestants 
and  Catholics  ;  remodelled  by  his  influence  the  representative,  ecclesi 
astical,  and  educational  institutions,  and  created  a  public  opinion  that 
surpassed  the  wildest  dreams  of  his  predecessors.  Can  we  wonder  at 
the  proud  exultation  with  which  he  exclaimed,  '  Grattan  sat  by  the 
cradle  of  his  country  and  followed  her  hearse  :  it  was  left  for  me  to 
sound  the  resurrection  trumpet,  and  to  show  she  was  not  dead,  but 
sleeping? '  " 

But  the  method  by  which  he  achieved  this  success  is  perhaps 
more  remarkable  than  even  the  success  itself.     An  Irish  poet, 
one  of  his  bitterest  assailants  thirty  years  ago,  has  laid  a  chaplet 
of  atonement  on  his  altar,  and  one  verse  runs, — 
"  O  great  world-leader  of  a  mighty  age  ! 
Praise  unto  thee  let  all  the  people  give. 
By  thy  great  name  of  LIBERATOR  live 
"-'•    .  In  golden  letters  upon  history's  page  ; 

And  this  thy  epitaph  while  time  shall  be,— 

He  found  his  country  chained,  but  left  her  free." 


5 $6  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

It  is  natural  that  Ireland  should  remember  him  as  her  liber 
ator.  But,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  I  think  Europe  and 
America  will  remember  him  by  a  higher  title.  I  said  in  open 
ing,  that  the  cause  of  constitutional  government  is  more  indebted 
to  O'Connell  than  to  any  other  political  leader  of  the  last  two 
centuries.  Wnat  I  mean  is,  that  he  invented  the  great  method 
of  constitutional  agitation.  Agitator  is  a  title  which  will  last 
longer,  which  suggests  a  broader  and  more  permanent  influence, 
and  entitles  him  to  the  gratitude  of  far  more  millions,  than  the 
name  Ireland  loves  to  give  him.  The  "  first  great  agitator"  is 
his  proudest  title  to  gratitude  and  fame.  Agitation  is  the 
method  that  puts  the  school  by  the  side  of  the  ballot-box.  The 
Fremont  canvass  was  the  nation's  best  school.  Agitation  pre 
vents  rebellion,  keeps  the  peace,  and  secures  progress.  Every 
steps  she  gains  is  gained  forever.  Muskets  are  the  weapons  of 
animals  :  agitation  is  the  atmosphere  of  brains.  The  old  Hindoo 
saw,  in  his  dream,  the  human  race  led  out  to  its  various  for 
tunes.  First,  men  were  in  chains  which  went  back  to  an  iron 
hand  ;  then  he  saw  them  led  by  threads  from  the  brain,  which 
went  upward  to  an  unseen  hand.  The  first  was  despotism,  iron, 
and  ruling  by  force.  The  last  was  civilization,  ruling  by  ideas. 

Agitation  is  an  old  word  with  a  new  meaning.  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  the  first  English  leader  who  felt  he  was  its  tool,  defined  it 
to  be  "  the  marshalling  of  the  conscience  of  a  nation  to  mould 
its  laws."  O'Connell  was  the  first  to  show  and  use  its  power, 
to  lay  down  its  principles,  to  analyze  its  elements,  and  mark  out 
its  metes  and  bounds.  It  is  voluntary,  public,  and  above-board, 
—  no  oath-bound  secret  societies  like  those  of  old  time  in  Ireland, 
and  of  the  Continent  to-day.  Its  means  are  reason  and  argu 
ment, — no  appeal  to  arms.  Wait  patiently  for  .the  slow  growth 
of  public  opinion.  The  Frenchman  is  angry  with  his  Govern 
ment  :  he  throws  up  barricades  and  shots  his  guns  to  the  lips. 
A  week's  fury  drags  the  nation  ahead  a  hand-breadth  :  reaction 
lets  it  settle  half-way  back  again.  As  Lord  Chesterfield  said, 
a  hundred  years  ago,  "  You  Frenchmen  erect  barricades,  but 
never  any  barriers."  An  Englishman  is  dissatisfied  with  public 
affairs.  He  brings  his  charges,  offeis  his  proof,  waits  for  prej 
udice  to  relax,  for  public  opinion  to  inform  itself.  Then  every 
step  taken  is  taken  forever  :  an  abuse  once  removed  never  re 
appears  in  history.  Where  did  he  learn  this  method  ?  Prac- 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  557 

tically  speaking,  from  O'Connell.  It  was  he  who  planted  its 
corner-stone, —argument,  no  violence  ;  ne  political  change  is 
worth  a  drop  of  human  blood.  His  other  motto  was,  "  Tell  the 
whole  truth  ;"  no  concealing  half  of  one's  convictions  to  make 
the  other  half  more  acceptable  ;  no  denial  of  one  truth  to  gain 
hearing  for  another  ;  no  compromise  ;  or,  as  he  phrased  it, 
"  nothing  is  politically  right  which  is  morally  wrong." 

Above  all,  plant  yourself  on  the  millions.  The  sympathy  of 
every  human  being,  no  matter  how  ignorant  or  how  humble, 
adds  weight  to  public  opinion.  At  the  outset  of  his  career  the 
clergy  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  his  appeal.  They  had  seen  their 
flocks  led  up  to  useless  slaughter  for  centuries,  and  counselled 
submission.  The  nobility  repudiated  him  :  they  were  either 
traitors  or  hopeless.  Protestants  had  touched  their  Ultima 
Thule  with  Grattan,  and  seemed  settling  down  in  despair.  Eng 
lish  Catholics  advised  waiting  till  the  tyrant  grew  merciful. 
O'Connell,  left  alone,  said,  "  I  will  forge  these  four  millions  of 
Irish  hearts  into  a  thunderbolt,  which  shall  suffice  to  dash  this 
despotism  to  pieces."  And  he  did  it.  Living  under  an  aristo 
cratic  government,  himself  of  the  higher  class,  he  anticipated 
Lincoln's  wisdom,  and  framed  his  mo\ement  "  for  the  people, 
of  the  people,  and  by  the  people."  It  is  a  singular  fact,  that,* 
the  freer  a.  nation  becomes,  the  more  utterly  democratic  the 
form  of  its  institutions,  this  outside  agitation,  this  pressure  of 
public  opinion  to  direct  political  action,  becomes  more  and  more 
necessary.  The  general  judgment  is,  that  the  freest  possible 
government  produces  the  freest  possible  men  and  women, — the 
most  individual,  the  least  servile  to  the  judgment  of  others. 
But  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  any  man  that  this  is  an 
unreasonable  expectation,  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  entire 
equality  and  freedom  in  political  forms  almost  inevitably  tend 
to  make  the  individual  subside  into  the  mass,  and  lose  his 
identity  in  the  general  whole.  Suppose  we  stood  in  England 
to-night.  There  is  the  nobility,  and  here  is  the  Church.  There 
is  the  trading-class  and  here  is  the  literary.  A  broad  gult  sepa 
rates  the  four  ;  and  provided  a  member  of  either  can  conciliate 
his  own  section,  he  can  afford,  in  a  very  large  measure,  to  de 
spise  the  judgment  of  the  other  three.  He  has,  to  some  extent, 
a  refuge  and  a  breakwater  against  the  tyranny  of  what  we  call 
public  opinion.  But  in  a  country  like  ours,  of  absolute  demo- 


558  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

cratic  equality,  public  opinion  is  not  only  omnipotent,  it  is  omni 
present.  There  is  no  refuge  from  its  tyranny  ;  there  is  no  hiding 
from  its  reach  ;  and  the  result  is,  that  if  you  take  the  old  Greek 
lantern,  and  go  about  to  seek  among  a  hundred,  you  will  find 
not  one  single  American  who  really  has  not,  or  who  does  not 
fancy  at  least  that  he  has,  something  to  gain  or  lose  in  his  am 
bition,  his  social  life,  or  his  business,  from  the  good  opinion  and 
the  votes  of  those  about  him.  And  the  consequence  is,  that, 
instead  of  being  a  mass  of  individuals,  each  one  fearlessly  blurt 
ing  out  his  own  convictions,  as  a  nation,  compared  with  other 
nations,  we  are  a  mass  of  cowards.  More  than  all  other  people, 
we  are  afraid  of  each  other. 

If  you  were  a  caucus  to-night,  and  I  were  your  orator,  none  of 
you  could  get  beyond  the  necessary  and  timid  limitations  of 
party.  You  not  only  would  not  demand,  you  would  not  allow 
me  to  utter,  one  word  of  what  you  really  thought,  and  what  I 
thought.  You  would  demand  of  me — and  my  value  as  a  caucus 
speaker  would  depend  entirely  on  the  adroitness  and  the  vigi 
lance  with  which  I  met  the  demand— that  I  should  not  utter  one 
single  word  which  would  compromise  the  vote  of  next  week. 
That  is  politics  ;  so  with  the  press.  Seemingly  independent,  and 
*  sometimes  really  so,  the  press  can  afford  only  to  mount  the 
cresting  wave,  not  go  beyond  it.  The  editor  might  as  well 
shoot  his  reader  with  a  bullet  as  with  a  new  idea.  He  must  hit 
the  exact  line  of  the  opinion  of  the  day.  I  am  not  finding  fault 
with  him  :  I  am  only  describing  him.  Some  three  years  ago  I 
took  to  one  of  the  freest  ot  the  Boston  journals  a  letter,  and  by 
appropriate  consideration  induced  its  editor  to  print  it.  And  as 
we  glanced  along  its  contents,  and  came  to  the  concluding  state 
ment,  he  said,  "Couldn't  you  omit  that?"  I  said,  "No:  I 
wrote  it  for  that;  it  is  the  gist  of  the  statement."-  "Well," 
said  he,  "it  is  true  :  there  is  not  a  boy  in  the  streets  that  does 
not  know  it  is  true  ;  but  I  wish  you  could  omit  it." 

I  insisted  ;  and  the  next  morning,  fairly  and  justly,  he  printed 
the  whole.  Side  by  side  he  put  an  article  of  his  own,  in  which 
he  said,  "We  copy  in  the  next  column  an  article  from  Mr. 
Phillips,  and  we  only  regret  the  absurd  and  unfounded  state 
ment  with  which  he  concludes  it."  He  had  kept  his  promise 
by  printing  the  article  :  he  saved  his  reputation  by  printing  the 
comment.  And  that,  again,  is  the  inevitable,  the  essential 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  559 

limitation  of  the  press  in  a  republican  community.  Our  insti 
tutions,  floating  unanchored  on  the  shifting  surface  of  popular 
opinion,  cannot  afford  to  hold  back,  or  to  draw  forward,  a  hated 
question,  and  compel  a  reluctant  public  to  look  at  it  and  to  con 
sider  it.  Hence,  as  you  see  at  once,  the  moment  a  large  issue, 
twenty  years  ahead  of  its  age,  presents  itself  to  the  considera 
tion  of  an  empire  or  of  a  republic,  just  in  proportion  to  the 
freedom  of  its  institutions  is  the  necessity  of  a  platform  outside 
of  the  press,  of  politics,  and  of  its  church,  whereon  stand  men 
with  no  candidate  to  elect,  with  no  plan  to  carry,  with  no  reputa 
tion  to  stake,  with  no  object  but  the  truth,  no  purpose  but  to 
tear  the  question  open  and  let  the  light  through  it.  So  much  in 
explanation  of  a  word  infinitely  hated,  — agitation  and  agitators, 
— but  an  element  which  the  progress  of  modern  government  has 
developed  more  and  more  every  day. 

The  great  invention  we  trace  in  its  twilight  and  seed  to  the 
days  of  the  Long  Parliament.  Defoe  and  L' Estrange,  later 
down,  were  the  first  prominent  Englishmen  to  fling  pamphlets 
at  the  House  of  Commons.  Swift  ruled  England  by  pamphlets. 
\Vilberforce  summoned  the  Church,  and  sought  the  alliance  of 
influential  classes.  But  O'Connell  first  showed  a  profound  faith 
in  the  human  tongue.  He  descried  afar  off  the  coming  omnip 
otence  of  the  press.  He  called  the  millions  to  his  side,  appre 
ciated  the  infinite  weight  of  the  simple  human  heart  and  con 
science,  and  grafted  democracy  into  the  British  Empire.  The 
later  Abolitionists,  Buxton,  Sturge,  and  Thompson,  borrowed 
his  method.  Cobden  flung  it  in  the  face  of  the  almost  omnip 
otent  landholders  of  England,  and  broke  the  Tory  party  for 
ever.  They  only  haunt  upper  air  now  in  the  stolen  garments  of 
the  Whigs.  The  English  administration  recognizes  this  new 
partner  in  the  Government,  and  waits  to  be  moved  on.  Gar 
rison  brought  the  new  weapon  to  our  shores.  The  only  wholly 
useful  and  thoroughly  defensible  war  Christendom  has  seen  in 
this  century,  the  greatest  civil  and  social  change  the  English 
race  ever  saw,  are  the  result. 

This  great  servant  and  weapon,  peace  and  constitutional  gov 
ernment  owe  to  O'Connell.  Who  has  given  progress  a  greater 
boon  ?  What  single  agent  has  done  as  much  to  bless  and  im 
prove  the  world  for  the  last  fifty  years  ? 

O'Connell  has  been  charged  with  coarse,  violent,  and  intern- 


560  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

perate  language.  The  criticism  is  of  little  importance.  Stupor 
and  palsy  never  understand  life.  White-livered  indifference  is 
always  disgusted  and  annoyed  by  earnest  conviction.  Protes 
tants  criticised  Luther  in  the  same  way.  It  took  three  centuries 
to  carry  us  far  off  enough  to  appreciate  his  colossal  proportions. 
It  is  a  hundred  years  to-day  since  O'Connell  was  born.  It  will 
take  another  hundred  to  put  us  at  such  an  angle  as  will  enable 
us  correctly  to  measure  his  stature.  Premising  that  it  would  be 
folly  to  find  fault  with  a  man  struggling  for  life  because  his  atti 
tudes  were  ungraceful,  remembering  the  Scythian  king's  answer 
to  Alexander,  criticising  his  strange  weapon, — "  If  you  knew 
how  precious  freedom  was,  you  would  defend  it  even  with  axes, ' ' 
— we  must  see  that  O'Connell's  own  explanation  is  evidently 
sincere  and  true.  He  found  the  Irish  heart  so  cowed,  and  Eng 
lishmen  so  arrogant,  that  he  saw  it  needed  an  independence 
verging  on  insolence,  a  defiance  that  touched  extremest  limits, 
to  breathe  self-respect  into  his  own  race,  teach  the  aggressor 
manners,  and  sober  him  into  respectful  attention.  It  was  the 
same  with  us  Abolitionists.  Webster  had  taught  the  North  the 
'bated  breath  and  crouching  of  a  slave.  It  needed  with  us  an 
attitude  of  independence  that  was  almost  insolent,  it  needed 
that  we  should  exhaust  even  the  Saxon  vocabulary  of  scorn,  to 
fitly  utter  the  righteous  and  haughty  contempt  that  honest  men 
had  for  man-stealers.  Only  in  that  way  could  we  wake  the 
North  to  self-respect,  or  teach  the  South  that  at  length  she  had 
met  her  equal,  if  not  her  master.  On  a  broad  canvas,  meant 
for  the  public  square,  the  tiny  lines  of  a  Dutch  Interior  would  be 
invisible.  In  no  other  circumstances  was  the  French  maxim, 
"  You  can  never  make  a  revolution  with  rose-water,"  more 
profoundly  true.  The  world  has  hardly  yet  learned  how  deep 
a  philosophy  lies  hid  in  Hamlet's, — 

"  Nay,  and  thou'lt  mouth, 
I'll  rant  as  well  as  thou." 

O'Connell  has  been  charged  with  insincerity  in  urging  repeal, 
and  those  who  defended  his  sincerity  have  leaned  toward  allow 
ing  that  it  proved  his  lack  of  common  sense.  I  think  both  critics 
mistaken.  His  earliest  speeches  point  to  repeal  as  his  ultimate 
object  :  indeed,  he  valued  emancipation  largely  as  a  means  to 
that  end.  No  fair  view  of  his  whole  life  will  leave  the  slightest 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  561 

ground  to  doubt  his  sincerity.  As  for  the  reasonableness  and 
necessity  of  the  measure,  I  think  every  year  proves  them.  Con 
sidering  O'Connell's  position,  I  wholly  sympathize  in  his  pro 
found  and  unshaken  loyalty  to  the  empire.  Its  share  in  the 
British  Empire  makes  Ireland's  strength  and  importance. 
Standing  alone  among  the  vast  and  massive  sovereignties  of 
Europe,  she  would  be  weak,  insignificant,  and  helpless.  Were 
I  an  Irishman  I  should  cling  to  the  empire. 

Fifty  or  .sixty  years  hence,  when  scorn  of  race  has  vanished, 
and  bigotry  is  lessened,  it  may  be  possible  for  Ireland  to  be  safe 
and  free  while  holding  the  position  to  England  that  Scotland 
does.  But  during  this  generation  and  the  next,  O'Connell  was 
wise  in  claiming  that  Ireland's  rights  would  never  be  safe  with 
out  "  Home  Rule."  A  substantial  repeal  of  the  union  should  be 
every  Irishman's  earnest  aim.  Were  I  their  adviser,  I  should 
constantly  repeat  what  Grattan  said  in  1810,  "  The  best  advice, 
gentlemen,  I  can  give  on  all  occasions  is,  '  Keep  knocking  at  the 
union.'  ' 

We  imagine  an  Irishman  to  be  only  a  zealot  on  fire.  We 
fancy  Irish  spirit  and  eloquence  to  be  only  blind,  reckless,  head 
long  enthusiasm.  But,  in  truth,  Grattan  was  the  soberest  leader 
of  his  day  ;  holding  scrupulously  back  the  disorderly  elements 
which  fretted  under  his  curb.  There  was  one  hour,  at  least, 
when  a  word  from  him  would  have  lighted  a  democratic  revolt 
throughout  the  empire.  And  the  most  remarkable  of  O'Con 
nell's  gifts  was  neither  his  eloquence  nor  his  sagacity  :  it  was 
his  patience, — "patience,  all  the  passion  of  great  souls;"  the 
tireless  patience,  which,  from  1800  to  1820,  went  from  town  to 
town,  little  aided  by  the  press,  to  plant  the  seeds  of  an  intelli 
gent  and  united,  as  well  as  Hot  patriotism.  Then,  after  many 
years  and  long  toil,  waiting  for  rivals  to  be  just,  for  prejudice 
to  wear  out,  and  for  narrowness  to  grow  wise,  using  British 
folly  and  oppression  as  his  wand,  he  moulded  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  most  excitable  of  races,  the  just  and  inevitable  indigna 
tion  of  four  millions  of  Catholics,  the  hate  of  plundered  poverty, 
priest,  noble,  and  peasant,  into  one  fierce,  though  harmonious 
mass.  He  held  it  in  careful  check,  with  sober  moderation, 
watching  every  opportunity,  attracting  ally  after  ally,  never 
forfeiting  any  possible  friendship,  allowing  no  provocation  to 
stir  him  to  anything  that  would  not  help  his  cause,  compelling 


$62  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

each  hottest  and  most  ignorant  of  his  followers  to  remember 
that  "he  who  commits  a  crime  helps  the  enemy."  At  last, 
when  the  hour  struck,  this  power  was  made  to  achieve  justice 
for  itself,  and  put  him  in  London, — him,  this  despised  Irishman, 
this  hated  Catholic,  this  mere  demagogue  and  man  of  words, 
him, — to  hold  the  Tory  party  in  one  hand,  and  the  Whig  party 
in  the  other  ;  all  this  without  shedding  a  drop  of  blood,  or  dis 
turbing  for  a  moment  the  peace  of  the  empire.  While  O'Con- 
nell  held  Ireland  in  his  hand,  her  people  were  more  orderly, 
law-abiding,  and  peaceful  than  for  a  century  before,  or  during 
any  year  since.  The  strength  of  this  marvellous  control  passes 
comprehension.  Out  West  I  met  an  Irishman  whose  father  held 
him  up  to  see  O'Connell  address  the  two  hundred  thousand  men 
at  Tara, — literally  to  see,  not  to  hear  him.  I  said,  "  But  you 
could  not  all  hear  even  his  voice." — "  Oh,  no,  sir  !  Only  about 
thirty  thousand  could  hear  him,  but  we  all  kept  as  still  and 
silent  as  if  yue  did."  With  magnanimous  frankness  O'Connell 
once  said,  "I  never  could  have  held  those  monster  meetings 
without  a  crime,  without  disorder,  tumult,  or  quarrel,  except 
for  Father  Mathew's  aid."  Any  man  can  build  a  furnace,  and 
turn  water  into  steam, — yes,  if  careless,  make  it  rend  his  dwell 
ing  in  pieces.  Genius  builds  the  locomotive,  harnesses  this 
terrible  power  in  iron  traces,  holds  it  with  master-hand  in  useful 
limits,  and  gives  it  to  the  peaceable  service  of  man.  The  Irish 
people  were  O'Connell's  locomotive,  sagacious  patience  and 
moderation  the  genius  that  built  it,  Parliament  and  justice  the 
station  he  reached. 

.  Every  one  who  has  studied  O'Connell's  life  sees  his  marked 
likeness  to  Luther, — the  unity  of  both  their  lives  ;  their  wit  ;  the 
same  massive  strength,  even  if  coarse-grained  ;  the  ease  with 
which  each  reached  the  masses,  the  power  with  which  they 
wielded  them  ;  the  same  unrivalled  eloquence,  fit  for  any  audi 
ence  ;  the  same  instinct  of  genius  that  led  them  constantly  to 
acts,  which,  as  Voltaire  said,  "  Foolish  men  call  rash,  but 
wisdom  sees  to  be  brave  ;"  the  same  broad  success.  But 
O'Connell  had  one  great  element  which  Luther  lacked, — the 
universality  of  his  sympathy  ;  the  far-reaching  sagacity  which 
discerned  truth  afar  off,  just  struggling  above  the  horizon  ;  the 
loyal,  brave,  and  frank  spirit  which  acknowledged  and  served 
it  ;  the  profound  and  rare  faith  which  believed  that  "  the  whole 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  563 

of  truth  can  never  do  harm  to  the  whole  of  virtue."  From  the 
serene  height  of  intellect  and  judgment  to  which  God's  gifts  had 
lifted  him,  he  saw  clearly  that  no  one  right  was  ever  in  the  way 
of  another,  that  injustice  harms  the  wrong-doer  even  more  than 
the  victim,  that  whoever  puts  a  chain  on  another  fastens  it  also 
on  himself.  Serenely  confident  that  the  truth  is  always  safe, 
and  justice  always  expedient,  he  saw  that  intolerance  is  only 
want  of  faith.  He  who  stifles  free  discussion,  secretly  doubts 
whether  what  he  professes  to  believe  is  really  true.  Coleridge 
says,  "  See  how  triumphant  in  debate  and  motion  O'Connell  is  ! 
Why  ?  Because  he  asserts  a  broad  principle,  acts  up  to  it,  rests 
his  body  on  it,  and  has  faith  in  it." 

Co-worker  with  Father  Mathew  ;  champion  of  the  Dissenters  ; 
advocating  the  substantial  principles  of  the  Charter,  though  not 
a  Chartist  ;  foe  of  the  corn  laws  ;  battling  against  slavery, 
whether  in  India  or  the  Carolinas  ;  the  great  democrat  who  in 
Europe  seventy  years  ago  called  the  people  to  his  side  ;  starting 
a  movement  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  by  the  people, — show 
me  another  record  as  broad  and  brave  as  this  in  the  European 
history  of  our  century.  Where  is  the  English  statesman,  where 
the  Irish  leader,  who  can  claim  one  ?  No  wonder  every  Eng 
lishman  hated  and  feared  him  !  He  wounded  their  prejudices 
at  every  point.  Whig  and  Tory,  timid  Liberal,  narrow  Dis 
senter,  bitter  Radical — all  feared  and  hated  this  broad,  brave 
soul,  who  dared  to  follow  Truth  wherever  he  saw  her,  whose 
toleration  was  as  broad  as  human  nature,  and  his  sympathy  as 
boundless  as  the  sea. 

To  show  you  that  he  never  took  a  leaf  from  our  American 
gospel  of  compromise  ;  that  he  never  filed  his  tongue  to  silence 
on  one  truth,  fancying  so  to  help  another  ;  that  he  never  sacri 
ficed  any  race  to  save  even  Ireland,— let  me  compare  him  with 
Kossuth,  whose  only  merits  were  his  eloquence  and  his  patriot 
ism.  When  Kossuth  was  in  Faneuil  Hall,  he  exclaimed,  "  Here 
is  a  flag  without  a  stain,  a  nation  without  a  crime  !"  We  Abo 
litionists  appealed  to  him,  "  O  eloquent  son  of  the  Magyar,  come 
to  break  chains  !  have  you  no  word,  no  pulse-beat,  for  four 
millions  of  negroes  bending  under  a  yoke  ten  times  heavier  than 
that  of  Hungary  ?"*  He  answered,  "  I  would  forget  anybody, 
I  would  praise  anything  to  hel-p  Hungary. " 

O'Connell  never  said  anything   like   that.     When  I  was   in 


564  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Naples,  I  asked  Sir  Thomas  Fowell  Buxton,  a  Tory,  "  Is  O'Con- 
nell  an  honest  man  ?" — "  As  honest  a  man  as  ever  breathed," 
said  he,  and  then  told  me  this  story.  "  When,  in  1830,  O'Con- 
nell  entered  Parliament,  the  Anti-Slavery  cause  was  so  weak 
that  it  had  only  Lushington  and  myself  to  speak  for  it  ;  and  we 
agreed,  that  when  he  spoke  I  should  cheer  him,  and  when  I 
spoke  he  should  cheer  me  ;  and  these  were  the  only  cheers  we 
ever  got.  O'Connell  came,  with  one  Irish  member  to  support 
him.  A  large  number  of  members  (I  think  Buxton  said  twenty- 
seven),  whom  we  called  the  West-India  interest,  the  Bristol 
party,  the  slave  party,  went  to  him,  saying,  '  O'Connell,  at  last 
you  are  in  the  House,  with  one  helper.  If  you  will  never  go 
down  to  Freemasons'  Hall  with  Buxton  and  Brougham,  here 
are  twenty-seven  votes  for  you  on  every  Irish  question.  If  you 
work  with  those  Abolitionists,  count  us  always  against  you.'  ' 

It  was  a  terrible  temptation.  How  many  a  so-called  states 
man  would  have  yielded  !  O'Connell  said,  "  Gentlemen,  God 
knows  I  speak  for  the  saddest  people  the  sun  sees  ;  but  may  my 
right  hand  forget  its  cunning,  and  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof 
of  my  mouth,  if,  to  save  Ireland, — even  Ireland, — 1  forget  the 
negro  one  single  hour!" — "From  that  day,"  said  Buxton, 
"  Lushington  and  I  never  went  into  the  lobby  that  O'Connell  did 
not  follow  us." 

Learn  of  him,  friends,  the  hardest  lesson  we  ever  have  set  us, 
that  of  toleration.  The  foremost  Catholic  of  his  age,  the  most 
stalwart  champion  of  the  Church,  he  was  also  broadly  and  sin 
cerely  tolerant  of  every  faith.  His  toleration  had  no  limit,  and 
no  qualification. 

I  scorn  and  scout  the  word  "  toleration."  It  is  an  insolent 
term.  No  man,  properly  speaking,  tolerates  another.  I  do  not 
tolerate  a  Catholic,  neither  does  he  tolerate  me.  We  are  equal, 
and  acknowledge  each  other's  right  :  that  is  the  correct  state 
ment. 

That  every  man  should  be  allowed  freely  to  worship  God 
according  to  his  conscience,  that  no  man's  civil  rights  should 
be  affected  by  his  religious  creed,  were  both  cardinal  principles 
of  O'Connell.  He  had  no  fear  that  any  doctrine  of  his  faith 
could  be  endangered  by  the  freest  possible  discussion.  Learn 
of  him,  also,  sympathy  with  every  race,  and  every  form  of 
oppression.  No  matter  who  was  the  sufferer,  or  what  the  form 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  565 

'of  the  injustice, — starving  Yorkshire  peasant,  imprisoned  Chart 
ist,  persecuted  Protestant,  or  negro  slave  ;  no  matter  of  what 
right,  personal  or  civil,  the  victim  had  been  robbed  ;  no  matter 
what  religious  pretext  or  political  juggle  alleged  "  necessity"  as 
an  excuse  for  his  oppression  ;  no  matter  with  what  solemnities 
he  had  been  devoted  on  the  altar  of  slavery,— the  moment 
O'Connell  saw  him,  the  altar  and  the  God  sank  together  in  the 
dust,  the  victim  was  acknowledged  a  man  and  a  brother,  equal 
in  all  rights,  and  entitled  to  all  the  aid  the  great  Irishman  could 
give  him. 

I  have  no  time  to  speak  of  his  marvellous  success  at  the  bar  ; 
of  that  profound  skill  in  the  law  which  enabled  him  to  conduct 
such  an  agitation,  always  on  the  verge  of  illegality  and  violence, 
without  once  subjecting  himself  or  his  followers  to  legal  penalty, 
— an  agitation  under  a  code*  of  which  Brougham  said,  "  No 
Catholic  could  lift  his  hand  under  it  without  breaking  the  law." 
I  have  no  time  to  speak  of  his  still  more  remarkable  success  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  Of  Flood's  failure  there,  Grattan  had 
said,  "  He  was  an  oak  of  the  forest,  too  old  and  too  great  to  be 
transplanted  at  fifty."  Grattan's  own  success  there  was  but 
moderate.  The  power  O'Connell  wielded  against  varied,  bitter, 
and  unscrupulous  opposition  was  marvellous.  I  have  no  time 
to  speak  of  his  personal  independence,  his  deliberate  courage, 
moral  and  physical,  his  unspotted  private  character,  his  unfail 
ing  hope,  the  versatility  of  his  talent,  his  power  of  tireless  work, 
his  ingenuity  and  boundless  resource,  his  matchless  self-posses 
sion  in  every  emergency,  his  ready  and  inexhaustible  wit.  But 
any  reference  to  O'Connell  that  omitted  his  eloquence  would  be 
painting  Wellington  in  the  House  of  Lords  without  mention  of 
Torres  Vedras  or  Waterloo. 

Broadly  considered,  his  eloquence  has  never  been  equalled  in 
modern  times,  certainly  not  in  English  speech.  Do  you  think 
I  am  partial  ?  I  will  vouch  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  the 
Virginia  slaveholder,  who  hated  an  Irishman  almost  as  much  as 
he  hated  a  Yankee,  himself  an  orator  of  no  mean  level.  Hear 
ing  O'Connell,  he  exclaimed,  "  This  is  the  man,  these  are  the 
lips,  the  most  eloquent  that  speak  English  in  my  day."  I  think 
he  was  right.  I  remember  the  solemnity  of  Webster,  the  grace 
of  Everett,  the  rhetoric  of  Choate  ;  I  know  the  eloquence  that 
lay  hid  in  the  iron  logic  of  Calhoun  ;  I  have  melted  beneath  the 


566  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

magnetism  of  Sergeant  S.  Prentiss  of  Mississippi,  who  wielded 
a  power  few  men  ever  had.  It  has  been  my  fortune  to  sit  at  the 
feet  of  the  great  speakers  of  the  English  tongue  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean.  But  I  think  all  of  them  together  never  sur 
passed,  and  no  one  of  them  ever  equalled,  O'Connell.  Nature 
intended  him  for  our  Demosthenes.  Never  since  the  great 
Greek  has  she  sent  forth  any  one  so  lavishly  gifted  for  his  work 
as  a  tribune  of  the  people.  In  the  first  place,  he  had  a  magnifi 
cent  presence,  impressive  in  bearing,  massive  like  that  of  Jupi 
ter.  Webster  himself  hardly  outdid  him  in  the  majesty  of  his 
proportions.  To  be  sure,  he  had  not  Webster's  craggy  face  and 
precipice  of  brow,  nor  his  eyes  glowing  like  anthracite  coal  ; 
nor  had  he  the  lion  roar  of  Mirabeau.  But  his  presence  filled 
the  eye.  A  small  O'Connell  would  hardly  have  been  an  O'Con 
nell  at  all.  These  physical  advantages  are  half  the  battle.  I 
remember  Russell  Lowell  telling  us  that  Mr.  Webster  came 
home  from  Washington  at  the  time  the  Whig  party  thought  of 
dissolution  a  year  or  two  before  his  death,  and  went  down  to 
Faneuil  Hall  to  protest  ;  drawing  himself  up  to  his  loftiest  pro 
portion,  his  brow  clothed  with  thunder,  before  the  listening 
thousands,  he  said,  "  Well,  gentlemen,  I  am  a  Whig,  a  Massa 
chusetts  Whig,  a  Faneuil  Hall  Whig,  a  revolutionary  Whig,  a 
constitutional  Whig.  If  you  break  the  Whig  party,  sir,  where 
am  I  to  go  ?"  And  says  Lowell,  "  We  held  our  breath,  think 
ing  where  he  coiild  go.  If  he  had  been  five  feet  three,  we  should 
have  said,  '  Who  cares  where  you  go  ?  '  So  it  was  with 
O'Connell.  There  was  something  majestic  in  his  presence  before 
he  spoke  ;  and  he  added  to  it  what  Webster  had  not,  what  Clay 
might  have  lent, — grace.  Lithe  as  a  boy  at  seventy,  every  atti 
tude  a  picture,  every  gesture  a  grace,  he  was  still  all  nature  : 
nothing  but  nature  seemed  to  speak  all  over  him.  Then  he  had 
a  voice  that  covered  the  gamut.  The  majesty  of  his  indigna 
tion,  fitly  uttered  in  tones  of  superhuman  power,  made  him  able 
to  "  indict"  a  nation,  in  spite  of  Burke's  protest. 

1  heard  him  once  say,  "  I  send  my  voice  across  the  Atlantic, 
careering  like  the  thunder-storm  against  the  breeze,  to  tell  the 
slaveholder  of  the  Carolmas  that  God's  thunderbolts  are  hot, 
and  to  remind  the  bondman  that  the  dawn  of  his  redemption  is 
already  breaking."  You  seemed  to  hear  the  tones  come  echo 
ing  back  to  London  from  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Then,  with 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  567 

the  slightest  possible  Irish  brogue,  he  would  tell  a  story,  while 
all  Exeter  Hall  shook  with  laughter.  The  next  moment,  tears 
in  his  voice  like  a  Scotch  song,  five  thousand  men  wept.  And 
all  the  while  no  effort.  He  seemed  only  breathing, 

"  As  effortless  as  woodland  nooks 

Send  violets  up,  and  paint  them  blue." 

We  used  to  say  of  Webster,  "  This  is  a  great  effort  ;"  of 
Everett,  "  It  is  a  beautiful  effort  ;"  but  you  never  used  the  word 
"  effort"  in  speaking  of  O'Connell.  It  provoked  you  that  he 
would  not  make  an  effort.  And  this  wonderful  power,  it  was 
not  a  thunderstorm  :  he  Hanked  you  with  his  wit,  he  surprised 
you  out  of  yourself  ;  you  were  conquered  before  you  knew  it. 
His  marvellous  voice,  its  almost  incredible  power  and  sweetness, 
Bulwer  has  well  described  : 

"  Once  to  my  sight  that  giant  form  was  given, 

Walled  by  wide  air,  and  roofed  by  boundless  heaven. 

Beneath  his  feet  the  human  ocean  lay, 

And  wave  on  wave  rolled  into  spare  away. 

Methought  no  clarion  could  have  sent  its  sound 

Even  to  the  centre  of  the  hosts  around  ; 

And,  as  I  thought,  rose  the  sonorous  swell, 

As  from  some  church-tower  swings  the  silvery  bell. 

Aloft  and  clear,  from  airy  tide  to  tide 

It  glided,  easy  as  a  bird  may  glide. 

Even  to  the  verge  of  that  vast  audience  sent, 

It  played  with  each  wild  passion  as  it  went : 

Now  stirred  the  uproar,  now  the  murmur  stilled, 

And  sobs  or  laughter  answered  as  it  willed." 

Webster  could  awe  a  senate,  Everett  could  charm  a  college, 
and  Choate  cheat  a  jury  ;  Clay  could  magnetize  the  million,  and 
Corwin  lead  them  captive.  O'Connell  was  Clay,  Corwin,  Choate, 
Everett,  and  Webster  in  one.  Before  the  courts,  logic  ;  at  the 
bar  of  the  senate,  unanswerable  and  dignified  ;  on  the  platform, 
grace,  wit,  and  pathos  ;  before  the  masses,  a  whole  man. 
Carlyle  says,  "He  is  God's  own  anointed  king  whose  single 
word  melts  all  wills  into  his."  This  describes  O'Connell. 
Emerson  says,  "  There  is  no  true  eloquence,  unless  there  is  a 


568  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

man  behind  the  speech."  Daniel  O'Connell  was  listened  to 
because  all  England  and  all  Ireland  knew  that  there  was  a  man 
behind  the  speech, — one  who  could  be  neither  bought,  bullied, 
nor  cheated.  He  held  the  masses  free  but  willing  subjects  in 
his  hand. 

He  owed  this  power  to  the  courage  that  met  every  new  ques 
tion  frankly,  and  concealed  none  of  his  convictions  ;  to  an  en- 
tireness  of  devotion  that  made  the  people  feel  he  was  all  their 
own  ;  to  a  masterly  brain  that  made  them  sure  they  were  always 
safe  in  his  hands.  Behind  them  were  ages  of  bloodshed  :  every 
rising  had  ended  at  the  scaffold  ;  even  Grattan  brought  them  to 
1798.  O'Connell  said,  "  Follow  me  :  put  your  feet  where  mine 
have  trod,  and  a  sheriff  shall  never  lay  hand  on  your  shoulder." 
And  the  great  lawyer  kept  his  pledge. 

This  unmatched,  long-continued  power  almost  passes  belief. 
You  can  only  appreciate  it  by  comparison.  Let  me  carry  you 
back  to  the  mob-year  of  1835,  m  this  country,  when  the  Abo 
litionists  were  hunted,  when  the  streets  roared  with  riot,  when 
from  Boston  to  Baltimore,  from  St.  Louis  to  Philadelphia,  a 
mob  took  possession  of  every  city  ;  when  private  houses  were 
invaded  and  public  halls  were  burned,  press  after  press  was 
thrown  into  the  river,  and  Lovejoy  baptized  freedom  with  his 
blood.  You  remember  it.  Respectable  journals  warned  the 
mob  that  they  were  playing  into  the  hands  of  the  Abolitionists. 
Webster  and  Clay  and  the  staff  of  Whig  statesmen,  told  the 
people  that  the  truth  floated  farther  on  the  shouts  of  the  mob 
than  the  most  eloquent  lips  could  carry  it.  But  law-abiding, 
Protestant,  educated  America  could  not  be  held  back.  Neither 
Whig  chiefs  nor  respectable  journals  could  keep  these  people 
quiet.  Go  to  England.  When  the  Reform  Bill  of  1831  was 
thrown  out  from  the  House  of  Lords,  the  people  were  tumultu 
ous  ;  and  Melbourne  and  Grey,  Russell  and  Brougham,  Lans- 
downe,  Holland,  and  Macaulay,  the  Whig  chiefs,  cried  out, 
"  Don't  violate  the  law  :  you  help  the  Tories  !  Riots  put  back 
the  bill."  But  quiet,  sober  John  Bull,  law-abiding,  could  not 
do  without  it.  Birmingham  was  three  days  in  the  hands  of  a 
mob.  Castles  were  burned.  Wellington  ordered  the  Scotch 
Greys  to  rough-grind  their  swords  as  at  Waterloo.  This  was 
the  Whig  aristocracy  of  England.  O'Connell  had  neither  office 
nor  title.  Behind  him  were  four  million  people,  steeped  in 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  569 

utter  wretchedness,    sore    with    the   oppression   of    centuries, 
ignored  by  statute. 

For  thirty  restless  and  turbulent  years  he  stood  in  front  of 
them,  and  said,  "  Remember,  he  that  commits  a  crime  helps  the 
enemy."  And  during  that  long  and  fearful  struggle,  I  do  not 
remember  one  of  his  followers  ever  being  convicted  of  a  politi 
cal  offence  ;  and  during  this  period  crimes  of  violence  were  very 
rare.  There  is  no  such  record  in  our  history.  Neither  in  clas 
sic  nor  in  modern  times  can  the  man  be  produced  who  held  a 
million  of  people  in  his  right  hand  so  passive.  It  was  due  to 
the  consistency  and  unity  of  a  character  that  had  hardly  a  flaw. 
I  do  not  forget  your  soldiers,  orators,  or  poets,— any  of  your 
leaders.  But  when  I  consider  O'Connell's  personal  disinter 
estedness,— his  rare,  brave  fidelity  to  every  cause  his  principles 
covered,  no  matter  how  unpopular,  or  how  embarrassing  to  his 
main  purpose,  —  that  clear,  far-reaching  vision,  and  true  heart, 
which,  on  most  moral  and  political  questions,  set  him  so  much 
ahead  of  his  times  ;  his  eloquence,  almost  equally  effective  in 
the  courts,  in  the  senate,  and  before  the  masses  ;  that  sagacity 
which  set  at  naught  the  malignant  vigilance  of  the  whole  im 
perial  bar,  watching  thirty  years  for  a  misstep  ;  when  I  remem 
ber  that  he  invented  his  tools,  and  then  measure  his  limited 
means  with  his  vast  success,  bearing  in  mind  its  nature  ;  when 
I  see  the  sobriety  and  moderation  with  which  he  used  his 
measureless  power,  and  the  lofty,  generous  purpose  of  his  whole 
life, — I  am  ready  to  affirm  that  he  was,  all  things  considered, 
the  greatest  man  the  Irish  race  ever  produced. 


THE  SCHOLAR  IN  A  REPUBLIC.1 


MR.  PRESIDENT  AND  BROTHERS  OF  THE  P.  B.  K  : 

A  HUNDRED  years  ago  our  society  was  planted — a  slip  from 
the  older  root  in  Virginia.  The  parent  seed,  tradition  says,  was 
French, — part  of  that  conspiracy  for  free  speech  whose  leaders 
prated  democracy  in  the  salons,  while  they  carefully  held  on  to 
the  flesh-pots  of  society  by  crouching  low  to  kings  and  their 
mistresses,  and  whose  final  object  of  assault  was  Christianity 
itself.  Voltaire  gave  the  watchword, — 

"  Crush  the  wretch." 
"  Ecrasez  I' in  fame." 

No  matter  how  much  or  how  little  truth  there  may  be  in  the 
tradition  :  no  matter  what  was  the  origin  or  what  was  the  object 
of  our  society,  if  it  had  any  special  one,  both  are  long  since  for 
gotten.  We  stand  now  simply  a  representative  of  free,  brave, 
American  scholarship.  I  emphasize  American  scholarship. 

In  one  of  those  glowing,  and  as  yet  unequalled  pictures  which 
Everett  drew  for  us,  here  and  elsewhere,  of  Revolutionary 
scenes,  I  remember  his  saying,  that  the  independence  we  then 
won,  if  taken  in  its  literal  and  narrow  sense,  was  of  no  interest 
and  little  value  ;  but,  construed  in  the  fulness  of  its  real  mean 
ing,  it  bound  us  to  a  distinctive  American  character  and  pur 
pose,  to  a  keen  sense  of  large  responsibility,  and  to  a  generous 
self-devotion.  It  is  under  the  shadow  of  such  unquestioned 
authority  that  I  use  the  term  "  American  scholarship." 

Our  society  was,  no  doubt,  to  some  extent,  a  protest  against 
the  sombre  theology  of  New  England,  where,  a  hundred  years 


1  Address  at  the  Centennial  Anniversary  of  the  Phi  Beta   Kappa 
of  Harvard  College,  June  3Oth,  1881. 


WENDELL    PHILLIPS.  5/1 

ago,  the  atmosphere  was  black  with  sermons,  and  where  religious 
speculation  beat  uselessly  against  the  narrowest  limits. 

The  first  generation  of  Puritans — though  Lowell  does  let 
Cromwell  call  them  "  a  small  colony  of  pinched  fanatics"— in 
cluded  some  men,  indeed  not  a  few,  worthy  to  walk  close  to 
Roger  Williams  and  Sir  Harry  Vane,  the  two  men  deepest  in 
thought  and  bravest  in  speech  of  all  who  spoke  English  in  their 
day,  and  equal  to  any  in  practical  statesmanship.  Sir  Harry 
Vane  was  in  my  judgment  the  noblest  human  being  who  ever 
walked  the  streets  of  yonder  city — I  do  not  forget  Franklin  or 
Sam  Adams,  Washington  or  Fayette,  Garrison  or  John  Brown. 
But  Vane  dwells  an  arrow's  flight  above  them  all,  and  his  touch 
consecrated  the  continent  to  measureless  toleration  of  opinion 
and  entire  equality  of  rights.  We  are  told  we  can  find  in  Plato 
"  all  the  intellectual  life  of  Europe  for  two  thousand  years  :"  so 
you  can  find  in  Vane  the  pure  gold  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  American  civilization,  with  no  particle  of  its  dross. 
Plato  would  have  welcomed  him  to  the  Academy,  and  Fenelon 
kneeled  with  him  at  the  altar.  He  made  Somers  and  John  Mar 
shall  possible-;  like  Carnot,  he  organized  victory;  and  Milton 
pales  before  him  in  the  stainlessness  of  his  record.  He  stands 
among  English  statesmen  pre-eminently  the  representative,  in 
practice  and  in  theory,  of  serene  faith  in  the  safety  of  trusting 
truth  wholly  to  her  own  defence.  For  other  men  we  walk  back 
ward,  and  throw  over  their  memories  the  mantle  of  charity  and 
excuse,  saying  reverently,  "  Remember  the  temptation  and  the 
age."  But  Vane's  ermine  has  no  stain  ;  no  act  of  his  needs 
explanation  or  apology  ;  and  in  thought  he  stands  abreast  of  our 
age, — like  pure  intellect,  belongs  to  all  time. 

Carlyle  said,  in  years  when  his  words  were  worth  heeding, 
"  Young  men,  close  your  Byron,  and  open  your  Goethe."  If 
my  counsel  had  weight  in  these  halls,  I  should  say,  "  Young 
men,  close  your  John  Winthrop  and  Washington,  your  Jefferson 
and  Webster,  and  open  Sir  Harry  Vane."  The  generation  that 
knew  Vane  gave  to  our  Alma  Mater  for  a  seal  the  simple  pledge, 
—  Veritas. 

But  the  narrowness  and  poverty  of  colonial  life  soon  starved 
out  this  element.  Harvard  was  rededicated  Christo  et  Eccle- 
sice _;  and,  up  to  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  free  thought  in 
religion  meant  Charles  Chauncy  and  the  Brattle  Street  Church 


572  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

protest,  while  free  thought  hardly  existed  anywhere  else.  But  a 
single  generation  changed  all  this.  A  hundred  years  ago  there 
were  pulpits  that  led  the  popular  movement  ;  while  outside  of 
religion  and  of  what  called  itself  literature,  industry  and  a  jeal 
ous  sense  of  personal  freedom  obeyed,  in  their  rapid  growth,  the 
law  of  their  natures.  English  common  sense  and  those  munic 
ipal  institutions  born  of  the  common  law,  and  which  had  saved 
and  sheltered  it,  grew  inevitably  too  large  for  the  eggshell  of 
English  dependence,  and  allowed  it  to  drop  off  as  naturally  as 
the  chick  does  when  she  is  ready.  There  was  no  change  of  law, 
— nothing  that  could  properly  be  called  revolution,  —  only  noise 
less  growth,  the  seed  bursting  into  flower,  infancy  becoming  man 
hood.  It  was  life,  in  its  omnipotence,  rending  whatever  dead 
matter  confined  it.  So  have  I  seen  the  tiny  weeds  of  a  luxuriant 
Italian  spring  upheave  the  colossal  foundations  of  the  Caesars' 
palace,  and  leave  it  a  mass  of  ruins. 

But  when  the  veil  was  withdrawn,  what  stood  revealed  aston 
ished  the  world.  It  showed  the  undreamt  power,  the  serene 
strength,  of  simple  manhood,  free  from  the  burden  and  restraint 
of  absurd  institutions  in  Church  and  State.  The  grandeur  of 
this  new  Western  constellation  gave  courage  to  Europe,  result 
ing  in  the  French  Revolution,  the  greatest,  the  most  unmixed, 
the  most  unstained  and  wholly  perfect  blessing  Europe  has  had 
in  modern  times,  unless  we  may  possibly  except  the  Reforma 
tion,  and  the  invention  of  printing. 

What  precise  effect  that  giant  wave  had  when  it  struck  our 
shore  we  can  only  guess.  History  is,  for  the  most  part,  an  idle 
amusement,  the  day-dream  of  pedants  and  triflers.  The  details 
of  events,  the  actors'  motives,  and  their  relation  to  each  other, 
are  buried  with  them.  How  impossible  to  learn  the  exact  truth 
of  what  took  place  yesterday  under  your  next  neighbor's  roof  ! 
Yet  we  complacently  argue  and  speculate  about  matters  a 
thousand  miles  off,  and  a  thousand  years  ago,  as  if  we  knew 
them.  When  I  was  a  student  here,  my  favorite  study  was  his 
tory.  The  world  and  affairs  have  shown  me  that  one  half  of 
history  is  loose  conjecture,  and  much  of  the  rest  is  the  writer's 
opinion.  But  most  men  see  facts,  not  with  their  eyes,  but  with 
their  prejudices.  Any  one  familiar  with  courts  will  testify  how 
rare  it  is  for  an  honest  man  to  give  a  perfectly  correct  account  of 
a  transaction.  We  are  tempted  to  see  facts  as  we  think  they 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  573 

ought  to  be.  or  wish  they  were.  And  yet  journals  are  the  favor 
ite  original  sources  of  history.  Tremble,  my  good  friend,  if 
your  sixpenny  neighbor  keeps  a  journal.  "  It  adds  a  new  terror 
to  death."  You  shall  go  down  to  your  children  not  in  your  fair 
lineaments  anJ  proportions,  but  with  the  smirks,  elbows,  and 
angles  he  sees  you  with.  Journals  are  excellent  to  record  the 
depth  of  the  last  snow  and  the  date  when  the  Mayflower  opens  ; 
but  when  you  come  to  men's  motives  and  characters,  journals 
are  the  magnets  that  get  near  the  chronometer  of  history  and 
make  all  its  records  worthless.  You  can  count  on  the  fingers  of 
your  two  hands  all  the  robust  minds  that  ever  kept  journals. 
Only  milksops  and  fribbles  indulge  in  that  amusement,  except 
now  and  then  a  respectable  mediocrity.  One  such  journal  night 
mares  New  England  annals,  emptied  into  history  by  respectable 
middle-aged  gentlemen,  who  fancy  that  narrowness  and  spleen, 
like  poor  wine,  mellow  into  truth  when  they  get  to  be  a  century 
old.  But  you  might  as  well  cite  the  Daily  Advertiser  of  1850 
as  authority  on  one  of  Garrison's  actions. 

And,  after  all,  of  what  value  are  these  minutiae  ?  Whether 
Luther's  zeal  was  partly  kindled  by  lack  of  gain  from  the  sale  of 
indulgences,  whether  Boston  rebels  were  half  smugglers  and 
half  patriots,  what  matters  it  now  ?  Enough  that  he  meant  to 
wrench  the  gag  from  Europe's  lips,  and  that  they  were  content 
to  suffer  keenly,  that  we  might  have  an  untrammelled  career. 
We  can  only  hope  to  discover  the  great  currents  and  massive 
forces  which  have  shaped  our  lives  :  all  else  is  trying  to  solve  a 
problem  of  whose  elements  we  know  nothing.  As  the  poet  hib- 
torianof  the  last  generation  says  so  plaintively,  "  History  comes 
like  a  beggarly  gleaner  in  the  field,  after  Death,  the  great  lord 
of  the  domain,  has  gathered  the  harvest,  and  lodged  it  in  his 
garner,  which  no  man  may  open." 

But  we  may  safely  infer  that  French  debate  and  experience 
broadened  and  encouraged  our  fathers.  To  that  we  undoubtedly 
owe,  in  some  degree,  the  theoretical  perfection,  ingrafted  on 
English  practical  sense  and  old  forms,  which  marks  the  founda 
tion  of  our  republic.  English  civil  life,  up  to  that  time,  grew 
largely  out  of  custom,  rested  almost  wholly  on  precedent.  For 
our  model  there  was  no  authority  in  the  record,  no  precedent  on 
the  file  ;  unless  you  find  it,  perhaps,  partially,  in  that  Long  Par 
liament  bill  with  which  Sir  Harry  Vane  would  have  outgener- 


5/4  WENDELL    PHILLIPS. 

ailed  Cromwell,  if  the  shameless  soldier  had  not  crushed  it  with 
his  muskets. 

Standing  on  Saxon  foundations,  and  inspired,  perhaps,  in 
some  degree,  by  Latin  example,  we  have  done  what  no  race,  no 
nation,  no  age,  had  before  dared  even  to  try.  We  have  founded 
a  republic  on  the  unlimited  suffrage  of  the  millions.  We  have 
actually  worked  out  the  problem  that  man,  as  God  created  him, 
may  be  trusted  with  self-government.  We  have  shown  the 
world  that  a  church  without  a  bishop,  and  a  state  without  a 
king,  is  an  actual,  real,  every-day  possibility.  Look  back  over 
the  history  of  the  race  :  where  will  you  find  a  chapter  that  pre 
cedes  us  in  that  achievement  ?  Greece  had  her  republics,  but 
they  were  the  republics  of  a  few  freemen  and  subjects  and  many 
slaves  ;  and  "  the  battle  of  Marathon  was  fought  by  slaves,  un 
chained  from  the  doorposts  of  their  masters'  houses. "  Italy  had 
her  republics  :  they  were  the  republics  of  wealth  and  skill  and 
family,  limited  and  aristocratic.  The  Swiss  republics  were 
groups  of  cousins.  Holland  had  her  republic,  — a  republic  of 
guilds  and  landholders,  trusting  the  helm  of  state  to  property 
and  education.  And  all  these,  which,  at  their  best,  held  but  a 
million  or  two  within  their  narrow  limits,  have  gone  down  in 
the  ocean  of  time. 

A  hundred  years  ago  our  fathers  announced  this  sublime, 
and,  as  it  seemed  then,  foolhardy  declaration,  that  God  intended 
all  men  to  be  free  and  equal, — all  men,  without  restriction,  with 
out  qualification,  without  limit.  A  hundred  years  have  rolled 
away  since  that  venturous  declaration  ;  and  to-day,  with  a  ter 
ritory  that  joins  ocean  to  ocean,  with  fifty  millions  of  people, 
with  two  wars  behind  her,  with  the  grand  achievement  of  having 
grappled  with  the  fearful  disease  that  threatened  her  central  life, 
and  broken  four  millions  of  fetters,  the  great  republic,  stronger 
than  ever,  launches  into  the  second  century  of  her  existence. 
The  history  of  the  world  has  no  such  chapter  in  its  breadth,  its 
depth,  its  significance,  or  its  bearing  on  future  history. 

What  Wycliffe  did  for  religion,  Jefferson  and  Sam  Adams  did 
for  the  State,— they  trusted  it  to  the  people.  He  gave  the  masses 
the  Bible,  the  right  to  think.  Jefferson  and  Sam  Adams  gave 
them  the  ballot,  the  right  to  rule.  His  intrepid  advance  con 
templated  theirs  as  its  natural,  inevitable  result.  Their  serene 
faith  completed  the  gift  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  makes  to 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  5/5 

humanity.  We  have  not  only  established  a  new  measure  of  the 
possibilities  of  the  race  :  we  have  laid  on  strength,  wisdom,  and 
skill  a  new  responsibility.  Grant  that  each  man's  relations  to 
God  and  his  neighbor  are  exclusively  his  own  concern,  and  that 
he  is  entitled  to  all  the  aid  that  will  make  him  the  best  judge  of 
these  relations  ;  that  the  people  are  the  source  of  all  power,  and 
their  measureless  capacity  the  lever  of  all  progress  ;  their  sense 
of  right  the  court  of  final  appeal  in  civil  affairs  ;  the  institutions 
they  create  the  only  ones  any  power  has  a  right  to  impose  ;  that 
the  attempt  of  one  class  to  prescribe  the  law,  the  religion,  the 
morals,  or  the  trade  of  another  is  both  unjust  and  harmful, — and 
the  Wycliffe  and  Jefferson  of  history  mean  this  if  they  mean  any 
thing. — then,  when,  in  1867,  Parliament  doubled  the  English 
franchise,  Robert  Lowe  was  right  in  affirming,  amid  the  cheers 
of  the  House,  "  Now  the  first  interest  and  duty  of  every  English 
man  is  to  educate  the  masses — our  masters."  Then,  whoever 
sees  farther  than  his  neighbor  is  that  neighbor's  servant  to  lift 
him  to  such  higher  level.  Then,  power,  ability,  influence,  char 
acter,  virtue,  are  only  trusts  with  which  to  serve  our  time. 

We  all  agree  in  the  duty  of  scholars  to  help  those  less  favored 
in  life,  and  that  this  duty  of  scholars  to  educate  the  mass  is  still 
more  imperative  in  a  republic,  since  a  republic  trusts  the  State 
wholly  to  the  intelligence  and  moral  sense  of  the  people.  The 
experience  of  the  last  forty  years  shows  every  man  that  law  has 
no  atom  of  strength,  either  in  Boston  cr  New  Orleans,  unless, 
and  only  so  far  as,  public  opinion  indorses  it,  and  that  your  life, 
goods,  and  good  name  rest  on  the  moral  sense,  self-respect,  and 
law-abiding  mood  of  the  men  that  walk  the  streets,  and  hardly 
a  whit  on  the  provisions  of  the  statute-book.  Come,  any  one  of 
you,  outside  of  the  ranks  of  popular  men,  and  you  will  not  fail 
to  find  it  so.  Easy  men  dream  that  we  live  under  a  government 
of  law.  Absurd  mistake  !  we  live  under  a  government  of  men 
and  newspapers.  Your  first  attempt  to  stem  dominant  and 
keenly-cherished  opinions  will  reveal  this  to  you. 

But  what  is  education  ?  Of  course  it  is  not  book-learning. 
Book-learning  does  not  make  five  per  cent  of  that  mass  of  com 
mon  sense  that  "  runs"  the  world,  transacts  its  business,  secures 
its  progress,  trebles  its  power  over  nature,  works  out  in  the  long 
run  a  rough  average  justice,  wears  away  the  world's  restraints, 
and  lifts  off  its  burdens.  The  ideal  Yankee,  who  "  has  more 


576  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

brains  in  his  hand  than  others  have  in  their  skulls,"  is  not  a 
scholar  ;  and  two  thirds  of  the  inventions  that  enable  France  to 
double  the  world's  sunshine,  and  make  Old  and  New  England 
the  workshops  of  the  world,  did  not  come  from  colleges  or  from 
minds  trained  in  the  schools  of  science,  but  struggled  up,  forc 
ing  their  way  against  giant  obstacles,  from  the  irrepressible 
instinct  of  untrained  natural  power.  Her  workshops,  not  her 
colleges,  made  England,  for  a  while,  the  mistress  of  the  world  ; 
and  the  hardest  job  her  workman  had  was  to  make  Oxford  will 
ing  he  should  work  his  wonders. 

So  of  moral  gains.  As  shrewd  an  observer  as  Governor 
Marcy  of  New  York  often  said  he  cared  nothing  for  the  whole 
press  of  the  seaboard,  representing  wealth  and  education  (he 
meant  book-learning),  if  it  set  itself  against  the  instincts  of  the 
people.  Lord  Brougham,  in  a  remarkable  comment  on  the  life 
of  Romilly,  enlarges  on  the  fact  that  the-  great  reformer  of  the 
penal  law  found  all  the  legislative  and  all  the  judicial  power  of 
England,  its  colleges  and  its  bar,  marshalled  against  him,  and 
owed  his  success,  as  all  such  reforms  do,  says  his  lordship, 
to  public  meetings  and  popular  instinct.  It  would  be  no  ex 
aggeration  to  say  that  government  itself  began  in  usurpa 
tion,  in  the  feudalism  of  the  soldier  and  the  bigotry  of  the 
priest  ;  that  liberty  and  civilization  are.  only  fragments  of  rights 
wrung  from  the  strong  hands  of  wealth  and  book-learning. 
Almost  all  the  great  truths  relating  to  society  were  not  the  re 
sult  of  scholarly  meditation,  "  hiving  up  wisdom  with  each  curi 
ous  year,"  but  have  been  first  heard  in  the  solemn  protests  of 
martyred  patriotism  and  the  loud  cries  of  crushed  and  starving 
labor.  When  common  sense  and  the  common  people  have 
stereotyped  a  principle  into  a  statute,  then  bookmen  come  to  ex 
plain  how  it  was  discovered  and  on  what  ground  it  rests.  The 
world  makes  history,  and  scholars  write  it,  one  half  truly,  and 
the  other  half  as  their  prejudices  blur  and  distort  it. 

New  England  learned  more  of  the  principles  of  toleration 
from  a  lyceum  committee  doubting  the  dicta  of  editors  and 
bishops  when  they  forbade  it  to  put  Theodore  Parker  on  its 
platform  ;  more  from  a  debate  whether  the  Anti-Slavery  cause 
should  be  so  far  countenanced  as  to  invite  one  of  its  advocates 
to  lecture  ;  from  Sumner  and  Emerson,  George  William  Cur 
tis,  and  Edwin  Whipple,  refusing  to  speak  unless  a  negro  could 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  577 

buy  his  way  into  their  halls  as  freely  as  any  other, — New  Eng 
land  has  learned  more  from  these  lessons  than  she  has  or  could 
have  done  from  all  the  treatises  on  free  printing  from  Milton 
and  Roger  Williams,  through  Locke,  down  to  Stuart  Mill. 

Selden,  the  profoundest  scholar  of  his  day,  affirmed,  "  No 
man  is  wiser  for  his  learning;"  and  that  was  only  an  echo  of 
the  Saxon  proverb,  "  No  fool  is  a  perfect  fool  until  he  learns 
Latin."  Bancroft  says  of  our  fathers,  that  "the  wildest  the 
ories  of  the  human  reason  were  reduced  to  practice  by  a  com 
munity  so  humble  that  no  statesman  condescended  to  notice  it, 
and  a  legislation  without  precedent  was  produced  off-hand  by 
the  instincts  of  the  people."  And  Wordsworth  testifies  that, 
while  German  schools  might  well  blush  for  their  subserviency, — 

"  A  few  strong  instincts  and  a  few  plain  rules, 

Among  the  herdsmen  of  the  Alps,  have  wrought 
More  for  mankind  at  this  unhappy  day 

Than  all  the  pride  of  intellect  and  thought." 

Wycliffe  was,  no  doubt,  a  learned  man.  But  the  learning  of 
his  day  would  have  burned  him,  had  it  dared,  as  it  did  burn  his 
dead  body  afterward.  Luther  and  Melanchthon  were  scholars, 
but  were  repudiated  by  the  scholarship  of  their  time,  which  fol 
lowed  Erasmus,  trying  "  all  his  life  to  tread  on  eggs  without 
breaking  them  ;"  he  who  proclaimed  that  "  peaceful  error  was 
better  than  tempestuous  truth."  What  would  college-graduate 
Seward  weigh,  in  any  scale,  against  Lincoln  bred  in  affairs  ? 

Hence  I  do  not  think  the  greatest  things  have  been  done  for 
the  world  by  its  bookmen.  Education  is  not  the  chips  of  arith 
metic  and  grammar, —  nouns,  verbs,  and  the  multiplication 
table  ;  neither  is  it  that  last  year's  almanac  of  dates,  or  series 
of  lies  agreed  upon,  which  we  so  often  mistake  for  history. 
Education  is  not  Greek  and  Latin  and  the  air-pump.  Still,  I 
rate  at  its  full  value  the  training  we  get  in  these  walls.  Though 
what  we  actually  carry  away  is  little  enough,  we  do  get  some 
training  of  our  powers,  as  the  gymnast  or  the  fencer  does  of  his 
muscles  :  we  go  hence  also  with  such  general  knowledge  of 
what  mankind  has  agreed  to  consider  proved  and  settled,  that 
we  know  where  to  reach  for  the  weapon  when  we  need  it. 

I  have  often  thought  the  motto  prefixed  to  his  college  library 
catalogue  by  the  father  of  the  late  Professor  Peirce, — Professor 


5/8  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

Peirce,  the  largest  natural  genius,  the  man  of  the  deepest  reach 
and  firmest  grasp  and  widest  sympathy,  that  God  has  given  to 
Harvard  in  our  day, — whose  presence  made  you  the  loftiest 
peak  and  farthest  outpost  of  more  than  mere  scientific  thought, 
— the  magnet  who,  with  his  twin  Agassiz,  made  Harvard  for 
forty  years  the  intellectual  Mecca  of  forty  States,  — his  father's 
catalogue  bore  for  a  motto,  "  Scire  ubi  aliquid  invenias  magna 
pars  ernditionis  est /"  and  that  always  seemed  to  me  to  gauge 
very  nearly  all  we  acquired  at  college,  except  facility  in  the  use 
of  our  powers.  Our  influence  in  the  community  does  not  really 
spring  from  superior  attainments,  but  from  this  thorough  train 
ing  of  faculties,  and  more  even,  perhaps,  from  the  deference 
men  accord  to  us. 

Gibbon  sa)S  we  have  two  educations,  one  from  teachers,  and 
the  other  we  give  ourselves.  This  last  is  the  real  and  only  edu 
cation  of  the  masses, — one  gotten  from  life,  from  affairs,  from 
earning  one's  bread  ;  necessity,  the  mother  of  invention  ;  re 
sponsibility,  that  teaches  prudence,  and  inspires  respect  for 
right.  Mark  the  critic  out  of  office  :  how  reckless  in  assertion, 
how  careless  of  consequences  ;  and  then  the  caution,  fore 
thought,  and  fair  play  of  the  same  man  charged  with  adminis 
tration.  See  that  young,  thoughtless  wife  suddenly  widowed  ; 
how  wary  and  skilful  !  what  ingenuity  in  guarding  her  child 
and  saving  his  rights  !  Any  one  who  studied  Europe  forty  or 
fifty  years  ago  could  not  but  have  marked  the  level  of  talk  there, 
far  below  that  of  our  masses.  It  was  of  crops  and  rents,  markets 
and  marriages,  scandal  and  fun.  Watch  men  here,  and  how 
often  you  listen,  to  the  keenest  discussions  of  right  and  wrong, 
this  leader's  honesty,  that  party's  justice,  the  fairness  of  this 
la\v,  the  impolicy  of  that  measure  ;— lofty,  broad  topics,  training 
morals,  widening  views.  Niebuhr  said  of  Italy,  sixty  years  ago, 
"  No  one  feels  himself  a  citizen.  Not  only  are  the  people  desti 
tute  of  hope,  but  they  have  not  even  wishes  touching  the  world's 
affairs  ;  and  hence  all  the  springs  of  great  and  noble  thoughts 
are  choked  up." 

In  this  sense  the  Fremont  campaign  of  1856  taught  Americans 
more  than  a  hundred  colleges  ;  and  John  Brown's  pulpit  at 
Harper's  Ferry  was  equal  to  any  ten  thousand  ordinary  chairs. 
God  lifted  a  million  of  hearts  to  his  gibbet,  as  the  Roman  cross 
lifted  a  world  to  itself  in  that  divine  sacrifice  of  two  thousand 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  579 

years  ago.  As  much  as  statesmanship  had  taugnt  in  our  pre 
vious  eighty  years,  that  one  week  of  intellectual  watching  and 
weighing  and  dividing  truth  taught  twenty  millions  of  people. 
Yet  how  little,  brothers,  can  we  claim  for  bookmen  in  that 
uprising  and  growth  of  1856  !  And  while  the  first  of  American 
scholars  could  hardly  find,  in  the  rich  vocabulary  of  Saxon 
scorn,  words  enough  to  express,  amid  the  plaudits  of  his  class, 
his  loathing  and  contempt  for  John  Brown,  Europe  thrilled  to 
him  as  proof  that  our  institutions  had  not  lost  all  their  native 
and  distinctive  life.  She  had  grown  tired  of  our  parrot  note  and 
cold  moonlight  reflection  of  older  civilizations.  Lansdowne  and 
Brougham  could  confess  to  Sumner  that  they  had  never  read  a 
page  of  their  contemporary,  Daniel  Webster  ;  and  you  spoke  to 
vacant  eyes  when  you  named  Prescott,  fifty  years  ago,  to  aver 
age  Europeans  ;  while  Vienna  asked,  with  careless  indifference, 
"  Seward,  who  is  he  ?"  But  long  before  our  ranks  marched  up 
State  Street  to  the  John  Brown  song,  the  banks  of  the  Seine  and 
of  the  Danube  hailed  the  new  life  which  had  given  us  another  and 
nobler  Washington.  Lowell  foresaw  him  when  forty  years  ago 
he  sang  of, — 

"  Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold. 

Wrong  forever  on  the  throne  ; 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future  : 

And  behind  the  dim  unknown 
Standeth  God,  within  the  shadow, 
Keeping  watch  above  His  own." 

And  yet  the  bookmen,  as  a  class,  have  not  yet  acknowledged 
him. 

It  is  here  that  letters  betray  their  lack  of  distinctive  American 
character.  Fifty  million  of  men  God  gives  us  to  mould  ;  burn 
ing  questions,  keen  debate,  great  interests  trying  to  vindicate 
their  right  to  be,  sad  wrongs  brought  to  the  bar  of  public  judg 
ment, — these  are  the  people's  schools.  Timid  scholarship  either 
shrinks  from  sharing  in  these  agitations,  or  denounces  them  as 
vulgar  and  dangerous  interference  by  incompetent  hands  with 
matters  above  them.  A  chronic  distrust  of  the  people  pervades 
the  book-educated  class  of  the  North  ;  they  shrink  from  that  free 
speech  which  is  God's  normal  school  for  educating  men,  throw 
ing  upon  them  the  grave  responsibility  of  deciding  great  ques- 


580  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

tions,  and  so  lifting  them  to  a  higher  level  of  intellectual  and 
moral  life.  Trust  the  people — the  wise  and  the  ignorant,  the 
good  and  the  had — with  the  gravest  questions,  and  in  the  end 
you  educate  the  race.  At  the  same  time  you  secure,  not  perfect 
institutions,  not  necessarily  good  ones,  but  the  best  institutions 
possible  while  human  nature  is  the  basis  and  the  only  material 
to  build  with.  Men  are  educated  and  the  State  uplifted  by  allow 
ing  all— every  one — to  broach  all  their  mistakes  and  advocate 
all  their  errors.  The  community  that  will  not  protect  its  most 
ignorant  and  unpopular  member  in  the  free  utterance  of  his 
opinions,  no  matter  how  false  or  hateful,  is  only  a  gang  of 
slaves  ! 

Anacharsis  went  into  the  Archon's  court  at  Athens,  heard  a 
case  argued  by  the  great  men  of  that  city,  and  saw  the  vote  by 
five  hundred  men.  Walking  in  the  streets,  some  one  asked 
him,  "What  do  you  think  of  Athenian  liberty?"  "  I  think," 
said  he,  "  wise  men  argue  cases,  and  fools  decide  them."  Just 
what  that  timid  scholar,  two  thousand  years  ago,  said  in  the 
streets  of  Athens,  that  which  calls  itself  scholarship  here  says 
to-day  of  popular  agitation, --that  it  lets  wise  men  argue  ques 
tions  and  fools  decide  them.  But  that  Athens  where  fools  de 
cided  the  gravest  questions  of  policy  and  of  right  and  wrong, 
where  property  you  had  gathered  wearily  to-day  might  be  wrung 
from  you  by  the  caprice  of  the  mob  to-morrow, — that  very 
Athens  probably  secured,  for  its  era,  the  greatest  amount  of 
human  happiness  and  nobleness  ;  invented  art,  and  sounded  for 
us  the  depths  of  philosophy.  God  lent  to  it  the  largest  intellects, 
and  it  flashes  to-day  the  torch  that  gilds  yet  the  mountain  peaks 
of  the  Old  World  :  while  Egypt,  the  hunker  conservative  of 
antiquity,  where  nobody  dared  to  differ  from  the  priest  or  to  be 
wiser  than  his  grandfather  ;  where  men  pretended  to  be  alive, 
though  swaddled  in  the  grave-clothes  of  creed  and  custom  as 
close  as  their  mummies  were  in  linen, — that  Egypt  is  hid  in  the 
tomb  it  inhabited,  and  the  intellect  Athens  has  trained  for  us 
digs  to-day  those  ashes  to  find  out  how  buried  and  forgotten 
hunkerism  lived  and  acted. 

I  knew  a  signal  instance  of  this  disease  of  scholar's  distrust, 
and  the  cure  was  as  remarkable.  In  boyhood  and  early  life  I 
was  honored  with  the  friendship  of  Lothrop  Motley.  He  grew 
up  in  the  thin  air  of  Boston  provincialism,  and  pined  on  such 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  581 

weak  diet.  I  remember  sitting  with  him  once  in  the  State  House 
when  he  was  a  member  of  our  Legislature.  With  biting  words 
and  a  keen  crayon  he  sketched  the  ludicrous  points  in  the  minds 
and  persons  of  his  fellow-members,  and,  tearing  up  the  pictures, 
said  scornfully,  "  What  can  become  of  a  country  with  such 
fellows  as  these  making  its  laws  ?  No  safe  investments  ;  your 
good  name  lied  away  any  hour,  and  little  worth  keeping  if  it 
were  not."  In  vain  I  combated  the  folly.  He  went  to  Europe, 
— spent  four  or  five  years.  I  met  him  the  day  he  landed,  on  his 
return.  As  if  our  laughing  talk  in  the  State  House  had  that 
moment  ended,  he  took  my  hand  with  the  sudden  exclamation, 
"  You  were  all  right  :  I  was  all  wrong  !  It  is  a  country  worth 
dying  for  ;  better  still,  worth  living  and  working  for,  to  make  it 
all  it  can  be  !"  Europe  made  him  one  of  the  most  American  of 
all  Americans.  Some  five  years  later,  when  he  sounded  that 
bugle-note  in  his  letter  to  the  London  Times,  some  critics  who 
knew  his  early  mood,  but  not  its  change,  suspected  there  might 
be  a  taint  of  ambition  in  what  they  thought  so  sudden  a  conver 
sion.  I  could  testify  that  the  mood  was  five  years  old  :  years 
before  the  slightest  shadow  of  political  expectation  had  dusked 
the  clear  mirror  of  his  scholar  life. 

This  distrust  shows  itself  in  the  growing  dislike  of  universal 
suffrage,  and  the  efforts  to  destroy  it  made  of  late  by  all  our  easy 
classes  The  white  South  hates  universal  suffrage  ;  the  so-called 
cultivated  North  distrusts  it.  Journal  and  college,  social-science 
convention  and  the  pulpit,  discuss  the  propriety  of  restraining 
it.  Timid  scholars  tell  their  dread  of  it.  Carlyle,  that  bundle 
of  sour  prejudices,  flouts  universal  suffrage  with  a  blasphemy 
that  almost  equals  its  ignorance.  See  his  words  :  "  Democracy 
will  prevail  when  men  believe  the  vote  of  Judas  as  good  as  that 
of  Jesus  Christ."  No  democracy  ever  claimed  that  the  vote  of 
ignorance  and  crime  was  as  good  in  any  sense  as  that  of  wisdom 
and  virtue.  It  only  asserts  that  crime  and  ignorance  have  the 
same  right  to  vote  that  virtue  has.  Only  by  allowing  that  right, 
and  so  appealing  to  their  sense  of  justice,  and  throwing  upon 
them  the  burden  of  their  full  responsibility,  can  we  hope  ever  to 
raise  crime  and  ignorance  to  the  level  of  self-respect.  The  right 
to  choose  your  governor  rests  on  precisely  the  same  foundation 
as  the  right  to  choose  your  religion  ;  and  no  more  arrogant  or 
ignorant  arraignment  of  all  that  is  noble  in  the  civil  and  re- 


$82  WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 

ligious  Europe  oi  the  last  five  hundred  years  ever  came  from  the 
triple  crown  on  the  Seven  Hills  than  this  sneer  of  the  bigot 
Scotsman.  Protestantism  holds  up  its  hands  in  holy  horror,  and 
tells  us  that  the  Pope  scoops  out  the  brains  of  his  churchmen, 
saying,  "I'll  think  for  you:  you  need  only  obey."  But  the 
danger  is,  you  meet  such  popes  far  away  from  the  Seven  Hills  ; 
and  it  is  sometimes  difficult  at  first  to  recognize  them,  for  they 
do  not  by  any  means  always  wear  the  triple  crown. 

Evarts  and  his  committee,  appointed  to  inquire  why  the  New 
York  City  government  is  a  failure,  were  not  wise  enough,  or  did 
not  dare,  to  point  out  the  real  cause,  the  tyranny  of  that  tool  of 
the  demagogue,  the  corner  grog-shop  ;  but  they  advised  taking 
away  the  ballot  from  the  poor  citizen.  But  this  provision  would 
not  reach  the  evil.  Corruption  does  not  so  much  rot  the  masses  : 
it  poisons  Congress.  Credit  Mobilier  and  money  rings  are  not 
housed  under  thatched  roofs  :  they  flaunt  at  the  Capitol.  As 
usual  in  chemistry,  the  scum  floats  uppermost.  The  railway 
king  disdained  canvassing  for  voters  :  "  It  is  cheaper,"  he  said, 
"  to  buy  legislatures." 

It  is  not  the  masses  who  have  most  disgraced  our  political 
annals.  I  have  seen  many  mobs  between  the  seaboard  and  the 
Mississippi.  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  any  but  well-dressed  mobs, 
assembled  and  countenanced,  if  not  always  led  in  person,  by 
respectability  and  what  called  itself  education.  That  unrivalled 
scholar,  the  first  and  greatest  New  England  ever  lent  to  Con 
gress,  signalled  his  advent  by  quoting  the  original  Greek  of  the 
New  Testament  in  support  of  slavery,  and  offering  to  shoulder 
his  musket  in  its  defence  ;  and  forty  years  later  the  last  professor 
who  went  to  quicken  and  lift  the  moral  mood  of  those  halls  is 
found  advising  a  plain,  blunt,  honest  witness  to  forge  and  lie, 
that  this  scholarly  reputation  might  be  saved  from  wreck.  Singu 
lar  comment  on  Landor's  sneer,  that  there  is  a  spice  of  the 
scoundrel  in  most  of  our  literary  men.  But  no  exacting  level 
of  property  qualification  for  a  vote  would  have  saved  those 
stains.  In  those  cases  Judas  did  not  come  from  the  unlearned 
class. 

Grown  gray  over  history,  Macaulay  prophesied  twenty  years 
ago  that  soon  in  these  States  the  poor,  worse  than  another  inroad 
of  Goths  and  Vandals,  would  begin  a  general  plunder  of  the 
rich.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  our  national  funds  sell  as  well  in 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  583 

Europe  as  English  consols  ;  and  the  universal-suffrage  Union 
can  borrow  money  as  cheaply  as  Great  Britain,  ruled,  one  half 
by  Tories,  and  the  other  half  by  men  not  certain  that  they  dare 
call  themselves  Whigs.  Some  men  affected  to  scoff  at  democracy 
as  no  sound  basis  for  national  debt,  doubting  the  payment  of 
ours.  Europe  not  only  wonders  at  its  rapid  payment,  but  the 
only  taint  of  fraud  that  touches  even  the  hem  of  our  garment  is 
the  fraud  of  the  capitalist  cunningly  adding  to  its  burdens,  and 
increasing  unfairly  the  value  of  his  bonds  ;  not  the  first  hint 
from  the  people  of  repudiating  an  iota  even  of  its  unjust  addi 
tions. 

Yet  the  poor  and  the  unlearned  class  is  the  one  they  propose 
to  punish  by  disfranchisement. 

•  No  wonder  the  humbler  class  looks  on  the  whole  scene  with 
alarm.  They  see  their  dearest  right  in  peril.  When  the  easy 
class  conspires  to  steal,  what  wonder  the  humbler  class  draws 
together  to  defend  itself  ?  True,  universal  suffrage  is  a  terrible 
power  ;  and,  with  all  the  great  cities  brought  into  subjection  to 
the  dangerous  classes  by  grog,  and  Congress  sitting  to  register 
the  decrees  of  capital,  both  sides  may  well  dread  the  next  move. 
Experience  proves  that  popular  governments  are  the  best  protec 
tors  of  life  and  property.  But  suppose  they  were  not,  Bancroft 
allows  that  "  the  fears  of  one  class  are  no  measure  of  the  rights 
of  another." 

Suppose  that  universal  suffrage  endangered  peace  and  threat 
ened  property.  There  is  something  more  valuable  than  wealth, 
there  is  something  more  sacred  than  peace.  As  Humboldt  says, 
"  The  finest  fruit  earth  holds  up  to  its  Maker  is  a  man."  To 
ripen,  lift,  and  educate  a  man  is  the  first  duty.  Trade,  law, 
learning,  science,  and  religion  are  only  the  scaffolding  where 
with  to  build  a  man.  Despotism  looks  down  into  the  poor  man's 
cradle,  and  knows  it  can  crush  resistance  and  curb  ill-will. 
Democracy  sees  the  ballot  in  that  baby-hand  ;  and  selfishness 
bids  her  put  integrity  on  one  side  of  those  baby  footsteps  and 
intelligence  on  the  other,  lest  her  own  hearth  be  in  peril.  Thank 
God  for  His  method  of  taking  bonds  of  wealth  and  culture  to 
share  all  their  blessings  with  the  humblest  soul  He  gives  to  their 
keeping  !  The  American  should  cherish  as  serene  a  faith  as  his 
fathers  had.  Instead  of  seeking  a  coward  safety  by  battening 
down  the  hatches  and  putting  men  back  into  chains,  he  should 


584  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

recognize  that  God  places  him  in  this  peril  that  he  may  work  out 
a  noble  security  by  concentrating  all  moral  forces  to  lift  this 
weak,  rotting,  and  dangerous  mass  into  sunlight  and  health. 
The  fathers  touched  their  highest  level  when,  with  stout-hearted 
and  serene  faith,  they  trusted  God  that  it  was  safe  to  leave  men 
with  all  the  rights  He  gave  them.  Let  us  be  worthy  of  their 
blood,  and  save  this  sheet-anchor  of  the  race, — universal  suf 
frage, — God's  church,  God's  school,  God's  method  of  gently 
binding  men  into  commonwealths  in  order  that  they  may  at  last 
melt  into  brothers. 

I  urge  on  college-bred  men  that,  as  a  class,  they  fail  in  repub 
lican  duty  when  they  allow  others  to  lead  in  the  agitation  of  the 
great  social  questions  which  stir  and  educate  the  age.  Agita 
tion  is  an  old  word  with  a  new  meaning.  Sir  Robert  Peel,  the 
first  English  leader  who  felt  himself  its  tool,  defined  it  to  be 
"  marshalling  the  conscience  of  a  nation  to  mould  its  laws." 
Its  means  are  reason  and  argument,  —  no  appeal  to  arms.  Wait 
patiently  for  the  growth  of  public  opinion.  That  secured,  then 
every  step  taken  is  taken  forever.  An  abuse  once  removed 
never  reappears  in  history.  The  freer  a  nation  becomes,  the 
more  utterly  democratic  in  its  form,  the  more  need  of  this  outside 
agitation.  Parties  and  sects  laden  with  the  burden  of  securing 
their  own  success  cannot  afford  to  risk  new  ideas.  "  Predomi 
nant  opinions,"  said  Disraeli,  "  are  the  opinions  of  a  class  that 
is  vanishing."  The  agitator  must  stand  outside  of  organiza 
tions,  with  no  bread  to  earn,  no  candidate  to  elect,  no  party  to 
'save,  no  object  but  truth, — to  tear  a  question  open  and  riddle  it 
with  light. 

In  all  modern  constitutional  governments,  agitation  is  the 
only  peaceful  method  of  progress.  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson, 
Rowland  Hill  and  Romilly,  Cobden  and  John  Bright,  Garrison 
and  O'Connell,  have  been  the  master  spirits  in  this  new  form  of 
crusade.  Rarely  in  this  country  have  scholarly  men  joined,  as 
a  class,  in  these  great  popular  schools,  in  these  social  move 
ments  which  make  the  great  interests  of  society  "  crash  and 
jostle  against  each  other  like  frigates  in  a  storm." 

It  is  not  so  much  that  the  people  need  us,  or  will  feel  any  lack 
from  our  absence.  They  can  do  without  us.  P>y  sovereign  and 
superabundant  strength  they  can  crush  their  way  through  all 
obstacles. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  585 

"  They  will  march  prospering, —  not  through  our  presence  ; 
Songs  will  inspirit  them,  —  not  from  our  lyre  ; 
Deeds  will  be  done — while  we  boast  our  quiescence  ; 
Still  bidding  crouch  whom  the  rest  bid  aspire." 

The  misfortune  is,  we  lose  a  God-given  opportunity  of  making 
the  change  an  unmixed  good,  or  with  the  slightest  possible  share 
of  evil,  and  are  recreant  beside  to  a  special  duty.  These  "  agita 
tions"  are  the  opportunities  and  the  means  God  offers  us  to 
refine  the  taste,  mould  the  character,  lift  the  purpose,  and  edu 
cate  the  moral  sense  of  the  masses,  on  whose  intelligence  and 
self-respect  rests  the  State.  God  furnishes  these  texts.  He 
gathers  for  us  this  audience,  and  only  asks  of  our  coward  lips  to 
preach  the  sermons. 

There  have  been  four  or  five  of  these  great  opportunities. 
The  crusade  against  slavery — that  grand  hypocrisy  which  poi 
soned  the  national  life  of  two  generations— was  one, — a  conflict 
between  two  civilizations  which  threatened  to  rend  the  Union. 
Almost  every  element  among  us  was  stirred  to  take  a  part  in 
the  battle.  Every  great  issue,  civil  and  moral,  was  involved, — 
toleration  of  opinion,  limits  of  authority,  relation  of  citizen  to 
law,  place  of  the  Bible,  priest  and  layman,  sphere  of  woman, 
question  of  race,  State  rights  and  nationality  ;  and  Channing 
testified  that  free  speech  and  free  printing  owed  their  preserva 
tion  to  the  struggle.  But  the  pulpit  flung  the  Bible  at  the  re 
former  ;  law  visited  him  with  its  penalties  ;  society  spewed  him 
out  of  its  mouth  ;  bishops  expurgated  the  pictures  of  their  Com 
mon  Prayer-books  ;  and  editors  omitted  pages  in  republishing 
English  history  ;  even  Pierpont  emasculated  his  class-book  ; 
Bancroft  remodelled  his  chapters  ;  and  Everett  carried  Wash 
ington  through  thirty  States,  remembering  to  forget  the  brave 
words  the  wise  Virginian  had  left  on  record  warning  his  country 
men  of  this  evil.  Amid  this  battle  of  the  giants,  scholarship  sat 
dumb  for  thirty  years  until  imminent  deadly  peril  convulsed  it 
into  action,  and  colleges,  in  their  despair,  gave  to  the  army  that 
help  they  had  refused  to  the  market-place  and  the  rostrum. 

There  was  here  and  there  an  exception.  That  earthquake 
scholar  at  Concord,  whose  serene  word,  like  a  whisper  among 
the  avalanches,  topples  down  superstitions  and  prejudices,  was 
at  his  post,  and,  with  half  a  score  of  others,  made  the  exception 


586  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

that  proved  the  rule.  Pulpits,  just  so  far  as  they  could  not 
boast  of  culture,  and  nestled  closest  down  among  the  masses, 
were  infinitely  braver  than  the  "spires  and  antique  towers"  of 
stately  collegiate  institutions. 

Then  came  reform  of  penal  legislation,  — the  effort  to  make 
law  mean  justice,  and  substitute  for  its  barbarism  Christianity 
and  civilization.  In  Massachusetts  Rantoul  represents  Beccaria 
and  Livingston,  Mackintosh  and  Romilly.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  had 
one  word  of  encouragement  from  Massachusetts  letters  ;  and, 
with  a  single  exception,  I  have  never  seen,  till  within  a  dozen 
years,  one  that  could  be  called  a  scholar  active  in  moving  the 
Legislature  to  reform  its  code. 

The  London  Times  proclaimed,  twenty  years  ago,  that  intem 
perance  produced  more  idleness,  crime,  disease,  want,  and 
misery,  than  all  other  causes  put  together  ;  and  the  Westminster 
Review  calls  it  a  "  curse  that  far  eclipses  every  other  calamity 
under  which  we  suffer."  Gladstone,  speaking  as  Prime  Minister, 
admitted  that  "  greater  calamities  are  inflicted  on  mankind  by 
intemperance  than  by  the  three  great  historical  scourges, — war, 
pestilence,  and  famine."  De  Quincey  says,  "  The  most  remark 
able  instance  of  a  combined  movement  in  society  which  history, 
perhaps,  will  be  summoned  to  notice,  is  that  which,  in  our  day, 
has  applied  itself  to  the  abatement  of  intemperance.  Two  vast 
movements  are  hurrying  into  action  by  velocities  continually 
accelerated, — the  great  revolutionary  movement  from  political 
causes  concurring  with  the  great  physical  movement  in  loco 
motion  and  social  intercourse  from  the  gigantic  power  of  steam. 
At  the  opening  of  such  a  crisis,  had  no  third  movement  arisen 
of  resistance  to  intemperate  habits,  there  would  have  been 
ground  of  despondency  as  to  the  melioration  of  the  human  race." 
These  are  English  testimonies,  where  the  State  rests  more  than 
half  on  bayonets.  Here  we  are  trying  to  rest  the  ballot-box  on 
a  drunken  people.  "  We  can  rule  a  great  city,"  said  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  "  America  cannot ;"  and  he  cited  the  mobs  of  New  York 
as  sufficient  proof  of  his  assertion. 

Thoughtful  men  see  that  up  to  this  hour  the  government  of 
great  cities  has  been  with  us  a  failure  ;  that  worse  than  the  dry- 
rot  of  legislative  corruption,  than  the  rancor  of  party  spirit,  than 
Southern  barbarism,  than  even  the  tyranny  of  incorporated 
wealth,  is  the  giant  burden  of  intemperance,  making  universal 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  587 

suffrage  a  failure  and  a  curse  in  every  great  city.  Scholars  who 
play  statesmen,  and  editors  who  masquerade  as  scholars,  can 
waste  much  excellent  anxiety  that  clerks  shall  get  no  office  until 
they  know  the  exact  date  of  Caesar's  assassination,  as  well  as 
the  latitude  of  Pekin,  and  the  Rule  of  Three.  But  while  this 
crusade — the  temperance  movement — has  been,  for  sixty  years, 
gathering  its  facts  and  marshalling  iis  arguments,  rallying 
parties,  besieging  legislatures  and  putting  great  States  on  the 
witness-stand  as  evidence  of  the  soundness  of  its  methods, 
scholars  have  given  it  nothing  but  a  sneer.  But  if  universal 
suffrage  ever  fails  here  for  a  time, — permanently  it  cannot  fail, 
—it  will  not  be  incapable  civil  service,  nor  an  ambitious  soldier, 
nor  Southern  vandals,  nor  venal  legislatures,  nor  the  greed  of 
wealth,  nor  boy  statesmen  rotten  before  they  are  ripe,  that  will 
put  universal  suffrage  into  eclipse  :  it  will  be  rum  intrenched  in 
great  cities  and  commanding  every  vantage  ground. 

Social  science  affirms  that  woman's  place  in  society  marks  the 
level  of  civilization.  From  its  twilight  in  Greece,  through  the 
Italian  worship  of  the  Virgin,  the  dreams  of  chivalry,  the  justice 
of  the  civil  law,  and  the  equality  of  French  society,  we  trace  her 
gradual  recognition  ;  while  our  common  law,  as  Lord  Brougham 
confessed,  was,  with  relation  to  women,  the  opprobrium  of  the 
age  and  of  Christianity.  For  forty  years,  plain  men  and  women, 
working  noiselessly,  have  washed  away  that  opprobrium  ;  the 
statute  books  of  thirty  States  have  been  remodelled,  and  woman 
stands  to-day  almost  face  to  face  with  her  last  claim,— the  bal 
lot.  It  has  been  a  weary  and  thankless,  though  successful, 
struggle.  But  if  there  be  any  refuge  from  that  ghastly  curse, 
the  vice  of  great  cities, — before  which  social  science  stands 
palsied  and  dumb, — it  is  in  this  more  equal  recognition  of 
woman.  If,  in  this  critical  battle  for  universal  suffrage,— our 
fathers'  noblest  legacy  to  us,  and  the  greatest  trust  God  leaves 
in  our  hands, — there  be  any  weapon,  which,  once  taken  from 
the  armory,  will  make  victory  certain,  it  will  be,  as  it  has  been 
in  art,  literature,  and  society,  summoning  woman  into  the  polit 
ical  arena. 

But,  at  any  rate,  up  to  this  point,  putting  suffrage  aside,  there 
can  be  no  difference  of  opinion  :  everything  born  of  Christianity, 
or  allied  to  Grecian  culture  or  Saxon  law,  must  rejoice  in  the 
gain.  The  literary  class,  until  half  a  dozen  years,  has  taken 


588  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

note  of  this  great  uprising  only  to  fling  every  obstacle  in  its  way. 
The  first  glimpse  \ve  get  of  Saxon  blood  in  history  is  that  line  of 
Tacitus  in  his  "  Germany,"  which  reads,  "  In  all  grave  matters 
they  consult  their  women."  Years  hence,  when  robust  Saxon 
sense  has  flung  away  Jewish  superstition  and  Eastern  prejudice, 
and  put  under  its  foot  fastidious  scholarship  and  squeamish 
fashion,  some  second  Tacitus,  from  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
will  answer  to  him  of  the  Seven  Hills,  "  In  all  grave  questions 
we  consult  our  women." 

I  used  to  think  that  then  we  could  say  to  letters  as  Henry  of 
Navarre  wrote  to  the  Sir  Philip  Sidney  of  his  realm,  Crillon, 
"  the  bravest  of  the  brave,"  "  We  have  conquered  at  Arques,  y/ 
tu  n'y  etais  past  Crillon" — "  You  were  not  there,  my  Crillon." 
But  a  second  thought  reminds  me  that  what  claims  to  be  litera 
ture  has  been  always  present  in  that  battle-field,  and  always  in 
the  ranks  of  the  foe. 

Ireland  is  another  touchstone  which  reveals  to  us  how  ab 
surdly  we  masquerade  in  democratic  trappings  while  we  have 
gone  to  seed  in  tory  distrust  of  the  people  ;  false  to  every  duty, 
which,  as  eldest-born  of  democratic  institutions,  we  owe  to  the 
oppressed,  and  careless  of  the  lesson  every  such  movement  may 
be  made  in  keeping  public  thought  clear,  keen,  and  fresh  as  to 
principles  which  are  the  essence  of  our  civilization,  the  ground 
work  of  all  education  in  republics. 

Sydney  Smith  said,  "  The  moment  Ireland  is  mentioned  the 
English  seem  to  bid  adieu  to  common  sense,  and  to  act  with  the 
barbarity  of  tyrants  and  the  fatuity  of  idiots."  "  As  long  as  the 
patient  will  suffer,  the  cruel  will  kick.  ...  If  the  Irish  go  on 
withholding  and  forbearing,  and  hesitating  whether  this  is  the 
time  for  discussion  or  that  is  the  time,  they  will  be  laughed  at 
another  century  as  fools,  and  kicked  for  another  century  as 
slaves."  Byron  called  England's  union  with  Ireland  "  ihe 
union  of  the  shark  with  his  prey."  Bentham's  conclusion,  from 
a  survey  of  five  hundred  years  of  European  history,  was,  "Only 
by  making  the  ruling  few  uneasy  can  the  oppressed  many  obtain 
a  particle  of  relief."  Edmund  Burke — Burke,  the  noblest  figure 
in  the  Parliamentary  history  of  the  last  hundred  years,  greater 
than  Cicero  in  the  senate  and  almost  Plato  in  the  academy — 
Burke  affirmed,  a  century  ago,  "  Ireland  has  learned  at  last  that 
justice  is  to  be  had  from  England,  only  when  demanded  at  the 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  589 

sword's  point."  And  a  century  later,  only  last  year,  Gladstone 
himself  proclaimed  in  a  public  address  in  Scotland,  "  England 
never  concedes  anything  to  Ireland  except  when  moved  to  do  so 
by  fear." 

When  we  remember  these  admissions,  we  ought  to  clap  our 
hands  at  every  fresh  Irish  "outrage,"  as  a  parrot-press  styles 
it  ;  aware  that  it  is  only  a  far-off  echo  of  the  musket-shots  that 
rattled  against  the  Old  State  House  on  March  5th,  1770,  and  of 
the  warwhoop  that  made  the  tiny  spire  of  the  "  Old  South"  trem 
ble  when  Boston  rioters  emptied  the  three  India  tea-ships  into  the 
sea, — welcome  evidence  of  living  force  and  rare  intelligence  in 
the  victim,  and  a  sign  that  the  day  of  deliverance  draws  each 
hour  nearer.  Cease  ringing  endless  changes  of  eulogy  on  the 
men  who  made  North's  Boston  port-bill  a  failure  while  every 
leading  journal  sends  daily  over  the  water  wishes  for  the  success 
of  Gladstone's  copy  of  the  bill  for  Ireland.  If  all  rightful  gov 
ernment  rests  on  consent, — if,  as  the  French  say,  you  "  can  do 
almost  anything  with  a  bayonet  except  sit  on  it," — be  at  least 
consistent,  and  denounce  the  man  who  covers  Ireland  with  regi 
ments  to  hold  up  a  despotism  which,  within  twenty  months,  he 
has  confessed  rests  wholly  upon  fear. 

Then  note  the  scorn  and  disgust  with  which  we  gather  up  our 
garments  about  us  and  disown  the  Sam  Adams  and  William 
Prescott,  the  George  Wash.ngfon  and  John  Brown,  of  St.  Peters 
burg,  the  spiritual  descendants,  the  living  representatives,  of 
those  who  make  our  history  worth  anything  in  the  world's 
annals. — the  Nihilists. 

Nihilism  is  the  righteous  and  honorable  resistance  of  a  people 
crushed  under  an  iron  rule.  Nihilism  is  evidence  of  life.  When 
"  order  reigns  in  Warsaw,"  it  is  spiritual  death.  Nihilism  is 
the  last  weapon  of  victims  choked  and  manacled  beyond  all 
other  resistance.  It  is  crushed  humanity's  only  means  of  making 
the  oppressor  tremble.  God  means  that  unjust  power  shall  be 
insecure  ;  and  every  move  of  the  giant,  prostrate  in  chains, 
whether  it  be  to  lift  a  single  dagger  or  stir  a  city's  revolt,  is  a 
lesson  in  justice.  One  might  well  tremble  for  the  future  of  the 
race  if  such  a  despotism  could  exist  without  provoking  the 
bloodiest  resistance.  I  honor  Nihilism  ;  since  it  redeems  human 
nature  from  the  suspicion  of  being  utterly  vile,  made  up  only  of 
heartless  oppressors  and  contented  slaves.  Every  line  in  our 


590  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

history,  every  interest  of  civilization,  bids  us  rejoice  when  the 
tyrant  grows  pale  and  the  slave  rebellious.  We  cannot  but  pity 
the  suffering  of  any  human  being,  however  richly  deserved  ; 
but  such  pity  must  not  confuse  our  moral  sense.  Humanity 
gains.  Chatham  rejoiced  when  our  fathers  rebelled.  For  every 
single  reason  they  alleged,  Russia  counts  a  hundred,  each  one 
ten  times  bitterer  than  any  Hancock  or  Adams  could  give. 
Sam  Johnson's  standing  toast  in  Oxford  port  was,  "  Success  to 
the  first  insurrection  of  slaves  in  Jamaica,"  a  sentiment  Southey 
echoed.  "  Eschew  cant,"  said  that  old  moralist.  But  of  all 
the  cants  that  are  canted  in  this  canting  world,  though  the  cant 
of  piety  may  be  the  worst,  the  cant  of  Americans  bewailing 
Russian  Nihilism  is  the  most  disgusting. 

I  know  what  reform  needs,  and  all  it  needs,  in  a  land  where 
discussion  is  free,  the  press  untrammelled,  and  where  public 
halls  protect  debate.  There,  as  Emerson  says,  "  What  the 
tender  and  poetic  youth  dreams  to-day,  and  conjures  up  with 
inarticulate  speech,  is  to-morrow  the  vociferated  result  of  public 
opinion,  and  the  day  after  is  the  charter  of  nations."  Lieber 
said,  in  1870,  "  Bismarck  proclaims  to-day  in  the  Diet  the  very 
principles  for  which  we  were  hunted  and  exiled  fifty  years  ago." 
Submit  to  risk  your  daily  bread,  expect  social  ostracism,  count 
on  a  mob  now  and  then,  "  be  in  earnest,  don't  equivocate,  don't 
excuse,  don't  retreat  a  single  inch,"  and  you  will  finally  be 
heard.  No  matter  how  long  and  weary  the  waiting,  at  last, — 

"  Ever  the  truth  comes  uppermost, 

And  ever  is  justice  done. 
For  Humanity  sweeps  onward  : 

Where  to-day  the  martyr  stands, 
On  the  morrow  crouches  Judas 

With  the  silver  in  his  hands  ; 

"  Far  in  front  the  cross  stands  ready, 

And  the  crackling  fagots  burn, 
While  the  hooting  mob  of  yesterday 

In  silent  awe  return 
To  glean  up  the  scattered  ashes 

Into  History's  golden  urn." 

In  such  a  land  he  is  doubly  and  trebly  guilty  who,  except  in 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  59! 

some  most  extreme  case,  disturbs  the  sober  rule  of  law  and 
order. 

But  such  is  not  Russia.  In  Russia  there  is  no  press,  no  de 
bate,  no  explanation  of  what  Government  does,  no  remonstrance 
allowed,  no  agitation  of  public  issues.  Dead  silence,  like  that 
which  reigns  at  the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc,  freezes  the  whole 
empire,  long  ago  described  as  "  a  despotism  tempered  by  assas 
sination."  Meanwhile,  such  despotism  has  unsettled  the  brains 
of  the  ruling  family,  as  unbridled  power  doubtless  made  some 
of  the  twelve  Caesars  insane  :  a  madman,  sporting  with  the  lives 
and  comfort  of  a  hundred  million  of  men.  The  young  girl 
whispers  in  her  mother's  ear,  under  a  ceiled  roof,  her  pity  for  a 
brother  knouted  and  dragged  half  dead  into  exile  for  his  opin 
ions.  The  next  week  she  is  stripped  naked,  and  flogged  to  death 
in  the  public  square.  No  inquiry,  no  explanation,  no  trial,  no 
protest,  one  dead  uniform  silence,  the  law  of  the  tyrant.  Where 
is  there  ground  for  any  hope  of  peaceful  change  ?  Where  the 
fulcrum  upon  which  you  can  plant  any  possible  lever  ? 

Macchiavelli's  sorry  picture  of  poor  human  nature  would  be 
fulsome  flattery  if  men  could  keep  still  under  such  oppression. 
No,  no  !  in  such  a  land  dynamite  and  the  dagger  are  the  neces 
sary  and  proper  substitutes  for  Faneuil  Hall  and  the  Daily 
Advertiser.  Anything  that  will  make  the  madman  quake  in  his 
bedchamber,  and  rouse  his  victims  into  reckless  and  desperate 
resistance.  This  is  the  only  view  an  American,  the  child  of  1620 
and  1776,  can  take  of  Nihilism.  Any  other  unsettles  and  per 
plexes  the  ethics  of  our  civilization. 

Born  within  sight  of  Bunker  Hill,  in  a  commonwealth  which 
adopts  the  motto  of  Algernon  Sidney,  sub  liber  tate  quiet  em 
("  accept  no  peace  without  liberty"), — son  of  Harvard,  whose 
first  pledge  was  "  Truth,"  citizen  of  a  republic  based  on  the 
claim  that  no  government  is  rightful  unless  resting  on  the  con 
sent  of  the  people,  and  which  assumes  to  lead  in  asserting  the 
rights  of  humanity, — I  at  least  can  say  nothing  else  and  nothing 
less — no,  not  if  every  tile  on  Cambridge  roofs  were  a  devil  hoot 
ing  my  words  ! 

I  shall  bow  to  any  rebuke  from  those  who  hold  Christianity  to 
command  entire  non- resistance.  But  criticism  from  any  other 
quarter  is  only  that  nauseous  hypocrisy,  which,  stung  by  three 
penny  tea-tax,  piles  Bunker  Hill  with  granite  and  statues,  prat- 


592  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

ing  all  the  time  of  patriotism  and  broadswords,  while,  like 
another  Pecksniff,  it  recommends  a  century  of  dumb  submission 
and  entire  non-resistance  to  the  Russians,  who,  for  a  hundred 
years,  have  seen  their  sons  by  thousands  dragged  to  death  or 
exile,  no  one  knows  which,  in  this  worse  than  Venetian  mystery 
of  police,  and  their  maidens  flogged  to  death  in  the  market 
place,  and  who  share  the  same  fate  if  they  presume  to  ask  the 
reason  why. 

"  It  is  unfortunate,"  says  Jefferson,  "  that  the  efforts  of  man 
kind  to  secure  the  freedom  of  which  they  have  been  deprived 
should  be  accompanied  with  violence  and  even  with  crime.  But 
while  we  weep  over  the  means,  we  must  pray  for  the  end." 
Pray  fearlessly  for  such  ends  :  there  is  no  risk  !  "  Men  are  all 
tories  by  nature,"  says  Arnold,  "  when  tolerably  well  off  :  only 
monstrous  injustice  and  atrocious  cruelty  can  rouse  them." 
Some  talk  of  the  rashness  of  the  uneducated  classes.  Alas  ! 
ignorance  is  far  oftener  obstinate  than  rash.  Against  one 
French  Revolution — that  scarecrow  of  the  ages — weigh  Asia, 
"carved  in  stone,"  and  a  thousand  years  of  Europe,  with  her 
hal'-dozen  nations  meted  out  and  trodden  down  to  be  the  dull 
and  contented  footstools  of  priests  and  kings.  The  customs  of 
a  thousand  years  ago  are  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  passing  gener 
ation,  so  deeply  buried,  so  fixed,  that  the  most  violent  efforts  of 
the  maddest  fanatic  can  drag  it  but  a  hand's-breadth. 

Before  the  war  Americans  were  like  the  crowd  in  that  terrible 
hall  of  Eblis  which  Beckford  painted  for  us, — each  man  with  his 
hand  pressed  on  the  incurable  sore  in  his  bosom,  and  pledged 
not  to  speak  of  it  :  compared  with  other  lands,  we  were  intel 
lectually  and  morally  a  nation  of  cowards. 

When  I  first  entered  the  Roman  States,  a  custom-house  official 
seized  all  my  French  books.  In  vain  I  held  up  to  him  a  treatise 
by  Ffenelon,  and  explained  that  it  was  by  a  Catholic  archbishop 
of  Cambray.  Gruffly  he  answered,  "It  makes  no  difference  : 
it  is  French."  As  I  surrendered  the  volume  to  his  remorseless 
grasp,  I  could  not  but  honor  the  nation  which  had  made  its  revo 
lutionary  purpose  so  definite  that  despotism  feared  its  very  lan 
guage.  I  only  wished  that  injustice  and  despotism  everywhere 
might  one  day  have  as  good  cause  to  hate  and  to  fear  everything 
American. 

At  last  that  disgraceful  seal  of  slave  complicity  is  broken. 


WENDELL   PHILLIPS.  593 

Let  us  inaugurate  a  new  departure,  recognize  that  we  are  afloat 
on  the  current  of  Niagara, — eternal  vigilance  the  condition  of 
our  safety, — that  we  are  irrevocably  pledged  to  the  world  not  to 
go  back  to  bolts  and  bars, — could  not  if  we  would,  and  would 
not  if  we  could.  Never  again  be  ours  the  fastidious  scholarship 
that  shrinks  from  rude  contact  with  the  masses.  Very  pleasant 
it  is  to  sit  high  up  in  the  world's  theatre  and  criticise  the  un 
graceful  struggles  of  the  gladiators,  shrug  one's  shoulders  at 
the  actors'  harsh  cries,  and  let  every  one  know  that  but  for 
"  this  villainous  saltpetre  you  would  yourself  have  been  a  sol 
dier."  But  Bacon  says,  "  In  the  theatre  of  man's  life,  God  and 
His  angels  only  should  be  lookers-on."  "  Sin  is  not  taken  out 
of  man  as  Eve  was  out  of  Adam,  by  putting  him  to  sleep." 
"  Very  beautiful,"  says  Richter,  "  is  the  eagle  when  he  floats 
with  outstretched  wings  aloft  in  the  clear  blue  ;  but  sublime 
when  he  plunges  down  through  the  tempest  to  his  eyry  on  the 
cliff,  where  his  unfledged  young  ones  dwell  and  are  starving." 
Accept  proudly  the  analysis  of  Fisher  Ames  :  "  A  monarchy  is 
a  man-of-war,  stanch,  iron-ribbed,  and  resistless  when  under 
full  sail  ;  yet  a  single  hidden  rock  sends  her  to  the  bottom.  Our 
republic  is  a  raft,  hard  to  steer,  and  your  feet  always  wet  ;  but 
nothing  can  sink  her."  If  the  Alps,  piled  in  cold  and  silence, 
be  the  emblem  of  despotism,  we  joyfully  take  the  ever-restless 
ocean  for  ours, — only  pure  because  never  still. 

Journalism  must  have  more  self-respect.  Now  it  praises  good 
and  bad  men  so  indiscriminately  that  a  good  word  from  nine- 
tenths  of  our  journals  is  worthless.  In  burying  our  Aaron 
Burrs,  both  political  parties — in  order  to  get  the  credit  of  mag 
nanimity — exhaust  the  vocabulary  of  eulogy  so  thoroughly  that 
there  is  nothing  left  with  which  to  distinguish  our  John  Jays. 
The  love  of  a  good  name  in  life  and  a  fair  reputation  to  survive 
us — that  strong  bond  to  well-doing — is  lost  where  every  career, 
however  stained,  is  covered  with  the  same  fulsome  flattery,  and 
where  what  men  say  in  the  streets  is  the  exact  opposite  of  what 
they  say  to  each  other.  De  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum  most  men 
translate,  "  Speak  only  good  of  the  dead."  I  prefer  to  construe 
it,  "  Of  the  dead  say  nothing  unless  you  can  tell  something 
good."  And  if  the  sin  and  the  recreancy  have  been  marked 
and  far-reaching  in  their  evil,  even  the  charity  of  silence  is  not 
permissible. 


594  WENDELL   PHILLIPS. 

To  be  as  good  as  our  fathers  we  must  be  better.  They 
silenced  their  fears  and  subdued  their  prejudices,  inaugurating 
free  speech  and  equality  with  no  precedent  on  the  file.  Europe 
shouted  "  Madmen  !"  and  gave  us  forty  years  for  the  ship 
wreck.  With  serene  faith  they  persevered.  Let  us  rise  to  their 
level.  Crush  appetite  and  prohibit  temptation  if  it  rots  great 
cities.  Intrench  labor  in  sufficient  bulwarks  against  that  wealth, 
which,  without  the  tenfold  strength  of  modern  incorporation, 
wrecked  the  Grecian  and  Roman  States  ;  and,  with  a  sterner 
effort  still,  summon  women  into  civil  life  as  re-enforcement  to 
our  laboring  ranks  in  the  effort  to  make  our 'civilization  a  suc 
cess. 

Sit  not,  like  the  figure  on  our  silver  coin,  looking  ever  back 
ward. 

"  New  occasions  teach  new  duties  ; 
Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouth  ; 
They  must  upward  still,  and  onward, 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth. 
Lo  !  before  us  gleam  her  camp-fires  ! 
We  ourselves  must  Pilgrims  be, 
Launch  our  Mayflower,  and  steer  boldly 
Through  the  desperate  winter  sea» 
Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal 
With  the  Past's  blood-rusted  key." 


INDEX. 


A. 

Adam,  William,  131. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  232,  284. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,    153,  206, 

213. 

Adams,  Rev.  Dr.  Nehemiah,  120. 
Alcott,  Bronson,  122. 
Alford,  78. 

Althorp,  Robert  E.,  274. 
American    Anti-Slavery    Society, 

51,  71,  254,  262,  330,  342,  373. 
Anderson,  Major,  of  Fort  Sumter, 

333. 

Andrew,  John  A.,  213,  297,  299. 
Anti-Slavery    Bazaar   in  Boston, 

248. 
Appleton,  Thomas  Gold,  29,  34, 

49- 

Appleton,  William,  227. 
Arabella,  The,  15. 
Austin,  James  Tricothic,  93. 

B. 

Banks,  N.  P.,  281. 

Bartol,  Rev.  Dr.,  437,  452. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  67,  231, 
33i,  338. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Dr.  Lyman,  40,  66. 

Booth,  Wilkes,  Lincoln's  assas 
sin,  340. 

Boston  Female  Anti-Slavery  So 
ciety,  59. 

Boston  Public  Latin  School,  34. 


Bowditch,  William  L.,  274,  419. 
Breckenridge,  John  C.,  302. 
Bright,  John,  330. 
British  and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery 

Society,  129. 
Broadway    Tabernacle    in     New 

York,  228. 

Brooks,  Preston  S.,  281. 
Brougham,  Lord,  128. 
Brown,  "  Box,"  221. 
Brown,  John,  ^gOr^  '~? 7 
Buchanan,  James,  284,  312. 
Buckingham,  Rev.  Dr.  Edgar,  42. 
Buffum,  Arnold,  68. 
Burleigh,  Charles  C.,  107. 
Burns,  Anthony,  269. 
Burr,  Aaron,  52. 
Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  54,  315,  386. 
Butler,  Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble,  52. 
Butler,  Pierce,  52. 
Byron,  Lady,  128. 

C. 

Cairnes,  Professor,  330. 
Calhoun,  John  C.,  176,  204. 
Channing,      Rev.     Dr.     William 

Ellery,  67,  90,  122,  235. 
Channing,  Rev.  W.  H.,  434. 
Chapman,  Maria  Weston,  no. 
Chapman,   Mr.  and  Mrs.  Henry 

G.,  80,  107,  130. 
Charles  I.  of  England,  16. 
Cheever,  George  B.,  170. 


596 


INDEX. 


Chesson,  F.  W.,  330. 

Child,  David  Lee,  108. 

Child,  Lydia  Maria,  109,  308. 

Choate,  Rufus,  227,  276. 

Clapp,  Acting  Mayor  of  Boston, 

305. 
Clarke,    Rev.    James    Freeman, 

406. 

Clarkson,  Thomas,  130. 
Clay,  Henry,  224,  227. 
Cobden,  Richard,  330. 
Congdon,  Charles  T.,  53. 
Craft,  William  and  Ellen,  221. 
Crosby,  Rev.  Dr.  Howard,  455. 
Curriculum  of  the  Boston   Latin 

Public  School,  35. 
Curtis,  Benjamin  R.,  273,  274. 
Curtis,  George  William,  247. 

D. 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  Jr.,  232,  269. 
Davis,  Jefferson,  312. 
Dewey,  Rev.  Dr.  Orville,  261. 
Dickerson,  Samuel,  339. 
Dickinson,  Anna  E.,  343. 
Disunion  Convention,  284. 
Dom  Pedro,  421. 
Duchess  of  Sunderland,  afterward 

of  Argyle,  128. 
Douglass,    Frederick,     161,     202, 

228,    232,    235,    315,    343,    369, 

406. 
Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  302. 

E. 

Ellis,  Charles,  274. 
Emerson,  298. 
English  Abolitionists,  114. 
Evarts,  Jeremiah,  67. 
Everett,  Edward,  36,  73. 


F. 

Faneuil  Hall,  91. 
Faneuil,  Peter,  91. 
Fillmore,  Millard,  232. 
Fisk,  Rev.  Wilbur,  174. 
Florida,  209. 

Follen,  Charles  T.  C.,  108. 
Folsom,  Abigail,  263. 
Fort  Sumter,  314. 
Foster,  Stephen  S.,  263. 
Fremont,  John  C.,  283. 
Free-Soil  Party,  The,  223. 
"  Friends,  The,"  122. 
Froude,  James  Anthony,  403. 

G. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  58,  63, 
106,  123,  133,  338,  428. 

Garnaut,  Eliza,  217. 

Garnaut,  Phoebe,  217. 

"  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipa 
tion,"  The,  63,  64. 

Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  284. 

Goodell,  William,  170. 

Gould,  A.  B.,  34,  36. 

Gough,  John  B.,  369. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  330,  33^,  363,  399- 

Greeley,  Horace,  229,  399. 

Green,  Dr.  Samuel  G.,  428. 

Green,  Miss  Ann  Terry,  79. 

Grew,  Miss  Mary,  138. 

Grimke,  A.  H.,  55. 

Grimke,  Judge  John  F.,  119. 

Grimke,    Sarah    and     Angelina, 
119. 

H. 

Hall,  Newman,  330. 

Hallet,    Benjamin    F.,    93,    273? 

274. 

Hallowell,  Edward  N.,  331. 
Hallowell,  The  Brothers,  305. 


INDEX. 


597 


Harvard  College,  38. 
Harvard  Law  School,  The,  49. 
Harvard  Washington  Corps,  The, 

44. 

Hauman,  James  W.,  213. 
Hedge,  Rev.  Dr.,  435. 
Higginson,  T.  W.,  310. 
Hildreth,  Richard,  252. 
Hillard,  George  E.,  Esq.,  93. 
Hoar,  'Squire,   of  Concord,  160, 

212. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  29,  437. 
Holt,  Judge,  338. 
Holyoake,  George  J.,  407. 
Hopkinson,  Thomas,  54. 
Howe,  Julia  Ward,  367. 
Howe,  Dr.  S.  G.,  213. 
Hughes,    Bishop   of   New   York, 

158. 
Hughes,  Thomas,  330. 


Jackson,    Francis,    107,  123,  274, 

278. 

Jackson,  Rev.  Dr.  Sheldon,  479. 
Jerrold,  Douglas,  252. 
Johnson,  Andrew,  350,  361. 
Johnson,   Oliver,    101,   306,   320, 

345- 

K. 

Kelley,  Abby  (Foster),  263. 
Keyes,  'Squire,  of  Concord,  160. 
Kirkland,  Rev.  Dr.  John  T.,  38. 
Kossuth,  Louis,  248. 

L. 

Lafayette,  36. 

Latimer,  a  mulatto,  164. 

Lawrence,  Abbot,  206. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  293. 

41  Liberator,"  The,  66,  238. 


Liberty  Party,  The,  169. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  287,  302,  312, 

335,  340. 
Livermore,    Mrs.    Mary  A.,   116, 

406,  475- 
Lord,    President    of    Dartmouth 

College,  175. 
Loring,  Ellis  Gray,  108. 
Loring,  Edward  G.,  269,  276. 
Louisiana,  205. 
Lovejoy,  Rev.  Elijah  P.,  88. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  351. 
Lowell,  Rev.  Dr.  Charles,  452. 
Lundy,  Benjamin,  63. 
Lyman,  Colonel  Theodore,  370. 
Lyman,  Mayor  of  Boston,  59. 

M. 

Mann,  Horace,  260. 

Manning,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  M.,  298. 

Marcy,  W.  L.,  Governor  of  New 
York,  73. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  130,  475. 

Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Soci 
ety,  125,  168. 

Mathew,  Father,  134. 

May,   Rev.  Samuel  J.,   106,  273, 

274,  343- 

McCarthy,  Justin,  330. 
McDuffie,     Governor     of     South 

Carolina,  72. 
Mercantile    Library    Association 

of  Boston,  223. 
Mill,  Mrs.  John  Stuart,  236. 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  330. 
Milmore,  Martin,  376. 
Missouri  Compromise,  The,  205. 
Morrison,  Rev.  Dr.,  46. 
Motley,  J.  Lothrop,  28,    34.    39, 

49,  399- 

Mott,  Lucretia,  130,  235. 
Municipal  Court  of  Boston,  22. 


598 


INDEX. 


N. 

National  Philanthopist,"  The, 
63. 

Nasby,  Petroleum  V.,  362. 

Nebraska  Bill,  The,  267. 

New  England  Anti-Slavery  Soci 
ety,  70,  112,  124,  168. 

"  Newburyport  Free  Press,"  The, 
63- 

Noel,  Baptist,  330. 

O. 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  128,  134,  155. 
Otis,  Harrison  Gray,  22,  36,  219. 
Otis,  James,  91. 

P. 

Park,  John  C.,  58. 

Parker,  Theodore,  122,  215,  228* 
232,  247,  251,  273,  300. 

Papists,  16. 

Party,  The  Union,  302. 

Phelps,  Rev.  Amos,    108. 

Phillips,  George  William,  274. 

Phillips,  Hon.  John,  21. 

Phillips,  Hon.  Jonathan,  93,  122. 

Phillips,  John,  founder  of  the 
Phillips  Academy  in  Exeter,  19. 

Phillips,  John,  the  goldsmith,  20. 

Phillips,  Judge,  19. 

Phillips,  Mrs.  John  (ne'e  Sally 
Walley),  21,  30,  31,  37,  38. 

Phillips,  Rev.  George,  15. 

Phillips,  Rev.  Samuel,  18. 

Phillips,  Rev.  Samuel  (4th  gen 
eration),  19. 

Phillips,  Samuel  and  John,  found 
ers  of  the  Phillips  Academy  in 
Andover,  19. 

Phillips,  Samuel,  merchant  ;  18. 

Phillips,    Wendell,   24. — Paternal 


home,  25. — Preaching  to  chairs, 
27. — Childhood  friends,  28. — 
Revolutionary  traditions,  31. — 
First  educational  advantages, 
34.  —  Becomes  the  friend  of 
Charles  Sumner,  34. — Loves 
athletic  exercises,  35. — An  at 
tractive  elocutionist  at  school, 
36. — Matriculates  in  Harvard 
College,  37. — The  friend  of 
Quincy,  39. — Consecrates  him 
self  to  God,  41.— His  standing 
and  classmates  at  college,  46. — 
Heard  Daniel  Webster  for  the 
first  time,  48. — Graduated,  48. 
— Entered  the  Harvard  Law 
School,  49. — Admitted  to  the 
bar,  52. — Meets  Trelawny,  52. 
— A  trip  to  Philadelphia,  52. — 
Acts  as  cicerone  to  Aaron  Burr, 
53. — First  public  honors,  53.— 
Opens  a  law  office,  54. — Wit 
nesses  the  Garrison  mob,  58. — 
His  attention  drawn  to  the 
weakness  of  the  law  against 
popular  prejudices,  60. — Forms 
the  acquaintance  of  Miss  Ann 
Green,  79. — Becomes  personal 
ly  acquainted  with  Garrison,  80. 
— His  first  Anti-Slavery  speech, 
82. — His  marriage,  86. — First 
speech  in  Faneuil  Hall,  95. — 
His  career  as  lecturer,  114. — 
A  member  of  "the  Friends," 
122.  —  General  agent  of  the 
Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery 
Society,  123. — Makes  a  trip  to 
Europe,  125. — Agitating  the 
emancipation  of  woman,  133.— 
Garrison  honors  him,  naming 
his  new-born  son  Wendell 
Phillips,  142. — Returns  from 


INDEX. 


599 


Europe,  148.  —  Addresses  a 
large  audience  upon  the  occa 
sion,  of  O'Connell's  appeal  to 
the  Irish  in  United  States,  155. 
— Antagonizes  the  Constitu 
tion,  165  — His  method  as  an 
agitator,  180.  —  Effecting  the 
abolitioa  of  caste  schools  in 
Boston,  202. — Arguing  against 
capital  punishment,  214.  — 
Stabbing  the  clergy  with  in 
terrogation  marks,  220. — De 
nouncing  Kossuth's  reticence 
on  the  question  of  slavery,  249. 
— Assisting  in  the  formation  of 
a  moral  reform  society,  251. — 
Arrested  for  obstructing  the 
process  of  the  United  States, 
273. — Signed  the  call  for  a  Dis 
union  Convention,  284. — Oc 
cupies  Theodore  Parker's  pul 
pit,  300. — Becomes  a  Union 
man,  315. — Organizes  colored 
regiments,  331.  —  Refuses  a 
nomination  to  Congress,  354. — 
Pleads  for  Female  Suffrage,  361. 
— Advocates  Labor  Reform, 
368.— Urges  the  cause  of  Tem 
perance. — Nominated  for  Gov 
ernor  of  Massachusetts  by  the 
Labor  Reform  and  Temperance 
parties,  382. — In  sympathy  with 
the  Irish  cause,  403. — His  views 
on  finance,  412.  —  Religious 
views,  431-439. — Deals  a  blow 
to  Harvard  College,  463. — His 
last  effort  as  an  orator,  475. — 
The  last  words  of  public  con 
cern  traced  by  his  pen,  479. — 
Leaves  this  world,  481. — Burial 
and  tributes  to,  vide  Book  IV., 
Chap.  IV. — Estimate  as  an 


orator,  Ib.  Chap.  V.  —  As  a 
man,  Ib.  Chap.  VI.— Phillip- 
siana,  Ib.  Chap.  VII. 

Phillips,  William,  20. 

Peace  Congress,  The,  306. 

Pease,  Miss  Elizabeth,  129. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  254,  313. 

Piers,  Rev.  John  Tappen,  45. 

Pierson,  John  H.,  213. 

Pillsbury,  Parker,  263. 

Powell,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Aaron,  361. 

Prelatists,  16. 

Prescott,  W.  H.,  227. 

Puritans,  16. 

Purvis,  Robert,  343. 

Q- 

Quincy,   Edmund,    39,    109,   201, 

343- 

Quincy,  Josiah,  24,  38,  232. 
Quotations      from      Pro-Slavery 

papers,  72. 

R. 

Redpath,  James,  56. 
Remond,  Charles  Lenox,  343. 
Republican    Party,    Organization 

of  the,  283. 
Revels,    Senator    from    Georgia, 

374- 
Rynders,  Captain,  228,  246. 

S. 

Salem,  17. 
Sargent,  Rev.  John  T.,  235,  251, 

370,  416,  417,  421,  431. 
Scott,  Dred,  286. 
Scott,  General  Winfield,  313. 
Schurz,  Carl,  413. 
Sewall,  Samuel  E.,  108. 
Sewall,  Hon.  Samuel  S.,  228. 
Seward,     William    H.,  280,    287, 

302,  351. 


6oo 


INDEX. 


Shadrach,  a  fugitive  slave,  243. 

Sharp,  Graneville,  173. 

Shaw,  Judge,  of  Boston,  164. 

Shaw,  Robert  G.,  331. 

Sims,  Thomas,   a  fugitive  slave, 

246. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  170,  246,  330. 
Smith,  Goldwin,  330. 
"  Sons  of  Liberty,"  The,  91. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  330. 
Spooner,  Lysander,  216. 
Sprague,  Peleg,  219. 
"Standard,"  The,  152. 
Stone,  Mrs.  Lucy,  406. 
Story,  Judge,  49. 
Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  67,  252. 
Stuart,  Professor  Moses,  175,227. 
Sumner,  Charles,  34,  39,   49»  55, 

78,  213,  232,  274,  281,  366,  399. 
Sturge,  Joseph,  130. 

T. 

Taney,  Chief  Justice,  286. 

Tappan,  Arthur,  65. 

Taylor,  General,  232. 

Texas,  The  annexation  of,  206. 

Thatcher,  Rev.  Moses,  108. 

Thayer,  Dr.  David,  308. 

Thompson,     George,     128,    145, 

237,  253,  330,  338. 
Ticknor,  George,  201,  227. 


Torrey,  Rev.  Charles  T.,  220. 
Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  321. 
Trelawny,  52. 
Tyndale,  General,  340. 


Walker,  Amasa,  284. 

Ward,  Rev.  Samuel,  230. 

Wayland,  Rev.  Dr.,  175. 

Webb,  Richard  D.,  129. 

Webster,  Daniel,  214,  226. 

Weiss,  John,  435. 

Weld,  T.  D.,  74,  120. 

Wells,  Hon.  David  A.,  427. 

Wesley,  John,  88. 

Whittier,  John  G.,   6S,    107,    120, 

421. 
Wightman,    Mayor,    of     Boston, 

307- 

Whig  Party,  The,  223. 
Willard,  Miss  Frances  E.,  406. 
Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania,  209. 
Wilson,  Senator  Henry,  284,  338, 

339- 
Wise,    Henry    A.,    Governor    of 

Virginia,  342. 

Women's  Rights  Convention, 
National,  247. 

Woods,  Rev.  Dr.  Leonard,  227. 

World's  Anti-Slavery  Conven 
tion,  128,  129. 


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